Charles J Argento, Accident and Injury Attorney
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Explaining the elements of negligent entrustment

On Behalf of | Apr 22, 2019 | blog

Most say that any time you can walk away from a car accident in Houston you should count yourself lucky, yet those who subscribe to this notion may never have been involved in such an incident themselves. A common element you may often feel following an accident is frustration, whether that be for having to deal with medical, needing to take time away from work to recover, or being left without the use of your vehicle. Those frustrations may be compounded even further if you discover that the person who hit you has a history of poor driving. In such cases, many come to our team here at Charles J. Argento asking if there might be a way to hold however allowed such drivers access to vehicles responsible. 

The legal principle of negligent entrustment does indeed allow you to assign vicarious liability to third parties in a car accident. This is due to the notion that those who entrust their vehicles to others should only do so if they are confident in that person’s driving skills. If they are not, then letting them use the vehicle anyway may be viewed as negligence. 

Yet there is a standard that must be met in order for you to apply negligent entrustment to your case. This standard has been established through state court rulings. The criteria for citing this principle is as follows: 

  • The vehicle owner loaned it to the driver
  • The driver was known to be reckless, incompetent or unlicensed 
  • The vehicle owner knew (or should have known) of the driver’s limitations
  • The driver was indeed reckless in operating the vehicle
  • That recklessness caused your accident

You can learn more about determining who is liable in car accident cases by continuing to explore our site.