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Six Carriers Sue C.H. Robinson and TQL Under RICO Over Freight Pricing
Kelly Barner : Updated on November 5, 2026
District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against two of the largest freight brokers in the United States, C.H. Robinson and Total Quality Logistics (TQL). The plaintiffs are Stevens Trucking, Western Flyer Express, D&M Carriers d/b/a Freymiller Trucking, IWX Motor Freight, Christenson Transportation and E.O.S. Inc.
They allege that the brokers won business by moving freight with noncompliant carriers at rates lawful carriers could not match, and they have brought the case under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, better known as RICO.
How freight brokerage works
A freight broker arranges transportation between a shipper and a motor carrier but does not haul the freight itself. The broker contracts with the shipper, then hires a carrier to move each load, and earns the difference between what the shipper pays and what the carrier is paid. Brokers often post available loads with an offered rate, and carriers decide whether to accept.
That makes the rate offered to carriers a central number in this case. According to the lawsuit, some TQL loads were posted as low as $1.60 a mile. For comparison, the American Transportation Research Institute estimates the average cost of operating a truck in 2025 at $2.33 a mile. How they managed to come in below that by so much is a key question.
What RICO is and how a civil RICO case works
RICO became law in 1970 as part of the Organized Crime Control Act, which was aimed at organized crime’s infiltration of legitimate businesses. It makes it unlawful to run an “enterprise” through a “pattern of racketeering activity,” meaning at least two related crimes from a list set out in the statute. Those underlying crimes are called predicate acts.
RICO has a criminal side and a civil side. This is a civil case. A business injured “by reason of” a RICO violation can sue and recover three times its losses, plus attorney fees. In this case the plaintiffs rely on two predicate acts, wire fraud and forced labor. The complaint includes four RICO counts plus a false-advertising claim under the Lanham Act.
Civil RICO is regularly used against established companies. In 1985 the Supreme Court held in Sedima v. Imrex that civil RICO is not limited to organized crime and does not require a prior criminal conviction.
What the carriers allege
According to the complaint, the brokers secured shipper contracts by promising safe, compliant transportation, then assigned loads to carriers that cut costs through falsified logs, drivers running 20 or more hours a day, changing DOT numbers, and inadequate insurance. The plaintiffs claim broker margins rose from 5–8 percent before 2021 to 15–20 percent. As reported by CDLLife, the complaint states, “TQL and C.H. Robinson set the price and illegal carriers accept these bargain-basement bids often with no questions asked.”
The complaint uses Super Ego, a Chicago-area trucking network that is not a defendant, as its main example. It alleges Super Ego operates through more than 70 related carriers and notes that C.H. Robinson named Super Ego its 2025 Carrier of the Year in the 1,000-plus truck category. These are allegations and have not been proven in court.
The plaintiffs also describe their own losses. Freymiller says it identified $51.2 million in lost sales across 63 customers, and Christenson says its revenue fell from $71.3 million in 2023 to $49.8 million in 2025.
How C.H. Robinson and TQL have responded
C.H. Robinson rejects the allegations. Chief Legal Officer Dorothy Capers told Land Line, “No freight broker sets rates. The marketplace does.” The company says carrier selection depends on proximity, size, equipment, certifications and customer requirements, that each Super Ego carrier it used had its own operating authority and was in good standing with FMCSA at the time, and that Super Ego carriers are no longer in its network. It has said it will pursue counterclaims.
TQL filed three motions on October 19th. They argue the claims do not meet the requirements of RICO or the Lanham Act, describing the case as “a dispute about Plaintiffs losing freight to a lower bidder.” They also argue that four plaintiffs signed carrier contracts requiring disputes to be heard in state court in Clermont County, Ohio, and has asked to remove IWX from the case because IWX had no contract with TQL.
As of the most recent reporting, C.H. Robinson has not yet filed its own response in court. The lawsuit did not come up on the company’s October 28 earnings call.
The legal question that may be decided first
To recover under civil RICO, a plaintiff has to show that the violation directly caused its injury. Transportation attorney Matthew Leffler, writing for FreightWaves, points to Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply (2006). In that case a company sued a competitor that allegedly avoided New York sales tax in order to charge lower prices. The Supreme Court ruled that the state, not the competitor, was the direct victim, and that RICO requires a direct link between the illegal act and the injury.
Matthew Leffler expects the brokers to rely on that precedent, arguing that the most directly affected parties would be drivers, shippers and the public rather than competing carriers. He notes the RICO counts could be dismissed on that basis while the false-advertising claim continues. TQL’s motion makes a related argument, saying the plaintiffs’ aggregate losses “do not identify which injury was caused by the asserted TQL statutory violation.”
What happens next
C.H. Robinson’s response is still to come. The court will also need to rule on TQL’s request to move the case to Ohio, which could be decided before any of the arguments about whether low freight rates reflect illegal activity.
The case is separate from Lipe v. Lupus Superior, a Dallas County crash case in which a judge affirmed a $604,025,000 (plus interest) verdict against C.H. Robinson on October 16, 2026. That case involves different plaintiffs and a different legal theory.
This case is a reminder that when a broker moves your freight, the carrier that shows up is a separate company with its own safety and compliance record, so it is worth knowing how your brokers vet and monitor the carriers they assign.
A rate that falls well below published cost benchmarks, such as ATRI’s estimate of $2.33 a mile for 2025, is a good reason to ask questions, even though it is not proof of wrongdoing on its own. The outcome is also worth following closely. If a RICO theory against freight brokers survives early motions, this case could become a roadmap for similar claims against other large 3PLs.