Line 37 of the record
What Is Negligent Hiring or Negligent Entrustment and How Does It Apply When a Trucking Company Employs an Unqualified Driver in Georgia?
Both are claims against the trucking company for its own conduct, and they use different knowledge tests. Negligent hiring asks whether the company knew or should have known the driver posed a risk of the kind of harm that happened. Negligent entrustment requires actual knowledge that the driver was incompetent. And since Quynn v. Hulsey (2020), a company’s admission that it answers for its driver’s negligence no longer gets these claims dismissed.
Two claims, two knowledge tests
The duty behind the employment claims is statutory: an employer “is bound to exercise ordinary care in the selection of employees and not to retain them after knowledge of incompetency” (O.C.G.A. § 34-7-20, as quoted by the Court of Appeals in Tuscany Condominium Ass’n v. C.P. (2025)). The same 2025 opinion restated the tests for each claim:
| Claim | What the injured person must show | Source quoted in Tuscany (2025) |
|---|---|---|
| Negligent hiring or retention | The employer hired or kept an employee it "knew or should have known posed a risk of harm to others where it is reasonably foreseeable that the employee's tendencies could cause the type of harm sustained by the plaintiff" | Doe v. Young Women's Christian Ass'n (2013) |
| Negligent training or supervision | "some evidence of incidents similar to the behavior that was the cause of the injury at issue" | Doe v. Young Women's Christian Ass'n (2013) |
| Negligent entrustment | The company entrusted the vehicle "with actual knowledge" that the driver was incompetent by reason of age or inexperience, physical or mental condition, or a "known habit of recklessness" | Gunn v. Booker (1989) |
The difference decides what evidence matters. For hiring and retention, what the company would have learned from the checks it was required to run is relevant. For entrustment, the question is what the company actually knew when it handed over the truck. How Georgia applies the actual-knowledge test to an owner lending a car is covered in negligent entrustment when you lend your vehicle.
Why admitting responsibility for the driver no longer ends these claims
Before 2020, Georgia courts applied what the Supreme Court of Georgia called the “Respondeat Superior Rule”: if the employer conceded it would be vicariously liable for its employee’s negligence, it was “entitled to summary judgment on the plaintiff’s claims for negligent entrustment, hiring, training, supervision, and retention, unless the plaintiff has also brought a valid claim for punitive damages against the employer for its own independent negligence.”
Quynn v. Hulsey ended that rule. Brandon Lanier was struck and killed by a truck driven by Riley Hulsey and owned by Hulsey’s employer, TriEst Ag Group, while crossing a street in Tifton. TriEst admitted respondeat superior, and the trial court granted it summary judgment on the hiring and entrustment claims before trial. The jury then found the driver and TriEst 50 percent at fault and Lanier 50 percent, which barred recovery on behalf of Lanier’s estate. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that “a plaintiff’s claims for an employer’s negligent entrustment, hiring, training, supervision, and retention are allegations of fault within the meaning of the apportionment statute, and OCGA § 51-12-33 mandates that the jury be allowed to consider the fault of all persons who contributed to the alleged injury or damages.” Its conclusion: “the Respondeat Superior Rule has been abrogated by OCGA § 51-12-33”.
Two consequences follow. The company’s own negligence goes to the jury as fault of its own, alongside the driver’s. And the company’s separate share is part of the same percentage allocation that, under § 51-12-33, ends the injured person’s recovery at 50 percent; the arithmetic is in Georgia’s apportionment of fault statute. Whether the employer answers for the driver at all is a separate question, explained in respondeat superior and the trucking company.
What the federal rules required the carrier to check
For each driver it employs, a motor carrier subject to the federal safety rules must make (49 C.F.R. § 391.23):
- An inquiry, within 30 days of the date employment begins, to each licensing authority where the driver held a license during the preceding 3 years, for the driver’s 3-year motor vehicle record.
- An investigation of the driver’s safety performance history with DOT-regulated employers during the preceding three years, including the accidents those employers recorded.
- Since January 6, 2023, for carriers subject to § 382.701(a), a query of the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse for the drug and alcohol part of that history.
The results go into the driver qualification file, which must also hold the employment application, the road test certificate or its accepted equivalent, the annual driving record review, and proof of medical certification: the medical examiner’s certificate or, for a commercial driver’s license holder whose state driving record shows medical certification status, that record obtained from the licensing state (§ 391.51(b)). The file must be kept “for as long as a driver is employed by that motor carrier and for three years thereafter”, with some records removable three years after they were made (§ 391.51(c)-(d)).
A missing inquiry is evidence for the hiring claim, because it shows what the company could have learned. It does not by itself show what the company knew, which the entrustment claim requires.
| Who | What the claim looks at | Federal checks that may apply |
|---|---|---|
| The driver | The driver's own negligence in the crash | Part 391 qualifications, including medical certification, for a driver of a commercial motor vehicle in interstate commerce |
| The carrier | What it knew or should have known when it hired, kept, trained, or entrusted the driver | The § 391.23 inquiries and the § 391.51 driver file, for a carrier subject to the federal safety rules |
| A broker | Whether it used reasonable care in choosing the carrier | § 391.23 is written for a motor carrier and the drivers it employs, so the question is the broker's own care |
For a purely intrastate trip, the starting point is which Georgia rules applied to that trip, not the federal parts.
When a broker chose the carrier
A broker that selects a carrier is a different defendant. In Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC (U.S. May 14, 2026), the Supreme Court held that a negligent-hiring claim against a broker for choosing a carrier falls within the federal safety exception and is not preempted; how that bears on a Georgia claim is in a trucking company’s USDOT number and MCS-90 endorsement.
Questions the company’s records answer
- On what date did employment begin, and on what dates were the motor vehicle record inquiries made?
- Which previous employers were contacted, and what did they report about accidents?
- Was the Clearinghouse queried, if the hire came after January 6, 2023?
- Did the file show current medical certification on the day of the crash?
- Who at the company knew what about the driver, and when?
Sources
- Quynn v. Hulsey, 310 Ga. 473 (2020)
- Tuscany Condominium Ass’n v. C.P., No. A25A0145 (Ga. Ct. App. July 2, 2025), quoting O.C.G.A. § 34-7-20, Doe v. Young Women’s Christian Ass’n of Greater Atlanta, 321 Ga. App. 403 (2013), and Gunn v. Booker, 259 Ga. 343 (1989).
- Gunn v. Booker, 259 Ga. 343 (1989)
- 49 C.F.R. § 391.23; § 391.51 (Cornell Legal Information Institute, read October 2026).
- Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, No. 24-1238 (U.S. May 14, 2026)
This page describes Georgia law as of October 2026 for general information. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship.