Beata Shapiro (Partner-Boston, MA) and Anne Kim (Associate-Boston, MA) obtained dismissal in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Court of all claims against Wilson Elser’s client, a shipper of cargo, arising out of a fatal motor vehicle accident in the course of the interstate shipment. The decedent’s estate alleged that the shipper was negligent in arranging for the shipment of goods and vicariously negligent and in a joint venture with the motor carrier involved in the accident. Beata and Anne argued the still-novel theory that all of the tort claims against the shipper were preempted by the Federal Aviation Authorization Administration Act, 49 U.S.C. §§ 14501, et seq. (the FAAAA), despite another Florida state court having recently held that FAAAA preemption does not preempt claims against a freight broker arising in a wrongful death case, and that no Florida court and only two Ohio federal courts and one Wisconsin federal court had previously examined the issue of whether claims against a shipper for personal injury or wrongful death are preempted by the FAAAA. The court granted dismissal, finding the current and majority thinking on FAAAA preemption in general as reflected in the Seventh and Eleventh circuit court decisions to be persuasive authority in favor of preemption and finding that the Ninth Circuit decision finding that the safety exception under FAAAA to save the claims to be incorrect in applying a presumption against preemption and in too broadly applying the safety exception.