Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | T | Trial

Saving negligent entrustment claims: for more than 50 years, courts have routinely dismissed negligent entrustment claims when truck companies admit agency in crashes. Here's how to keep your client's claim from getting tossed.

Article Excerpt
Imagine a common scenario: A tractor trailer and several other vehicles collide, with your client suffering significant injury. Your investigation reveals that the truck driver had a long history of violations, was driving on a suspended license, and was in violation of the hours-of-service regulations when the collision occurred. In addition to filing negligence claims against the truck driver and his employer under a respondent superior theory, you include a count against the employer for negligent hiring, retention, and entrustment.

In response, the trucking company admits an agency relationship with its employee driver and then moves to dismiss the negligent hiring, retention, and entrustment claim. In most states, the company will prevail on its motion, thereby preventing the jury from hearing about the employer's negligence in putting the driver behind the wheel.

Such a dismissal can damage your client's ability to fully recover. To obtain full recovery, you must be allowed to present evidence of all proximate causes of your client's injury. A potential proximate cause is the trucking company's negligence. Thus, you need to recognize what situations will allow negligent entrustment counts to survive.

Two theories

The theory of respondent superior imposes vicarious liability--that is, liability without fault--on an employer for the torts of its employees. Negligent entrustment, on the other hand, does not arise out of the parties' relationship, nor does it rest on imputed negligence or on ownership or agency. Rather, it is an independent tort that rests on the negligence of an owner of a dangerous instrumentality (for example, a truck) in entrusting it to a person whose use of it causes injury to another. (1)

Proving such a claim in a trucking accident case can be difficult. Under common law, a cause of action for negligent entrustment exists where an owner entrusts his or her motor vehicle to a driver, with actual or constructive knowledge that the driver is incompetent or unfit to drive. (2) That owner can be held liable for an injury proximately caused by the driver's incompetence. For public policy reasons, this theory applies in truck crash litigation because truck companies enjoy the privilege of driving trucks on the nation's highways and should bear the risks associated with doing so.

The rationale behind decisions to dismiss negligent entrustment claims when the defendant admits agency is that the admission leaves the plaintiff with nothing else to achieve....

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!