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What Is the Negligent Entrustment Doctrine in Georgia and When Does Lending Your Vehicle Make You Liable for the Borrower’s Accident?
Lending your car makes you liable for the borrower’s crash under this doctrine only if you knew, when you handed over the keys, that the borrower was incompetent to drive because of age or inexperience, physical or mental condition, or a known habit of recklessness. Georgia requires actual knowledge. That you should have known, or could have found out, is not enough.
The rule
The Supreme Court of Georgia stated it in Gunn v. Booker (1989): “Under the doctrine of negligent entrustment, a party is liable if he entrusts someone with an instrumentality, with actual knowledge that the person to whom he has entrusted the instrumentality is incompetent by reason of his age or inexperience, or his physical or mental condition, or his known habit of recklessness.” The Court of Appeals repeated the same sentence in July 2025 (Tuscany Condominium Ass’n v. C.P.).
| Category | What the owner must have actually known |
|---|---|
| Age or inexperience | That the borrower was too young or too inexperienced to drive safely |
| Physical or mental condition | That the borrower was impaired, for example by intoxication, at the time |
| Known habit of recklessness | A pattern of reckless driving, not a single incident |
Because the claim is about the owner’s own decision, it is separate from the borrower’s negligence. The borrower must also have been negligent, and that negligence must have caused the crash.
Gunn v. Booker: what actual knowledge requires
Brenda and Bob Gunn were injured in a July 4, 1985, motorboat accident off Wilmington Island. Steve Booker owned the boat; his brother Joe was operating it during the accident. The Gunns argued that Steve negligently entrusted the boat to Joe.
The Court affirmed summary judgment for Steve on that claim. On impairment, “There was no testimony that Steve knew Joe was intoxicated or knew that Joe was incompetent to handle the boat due to intoxication.” On recklessness, the only evidence was another boater’s testimony that the brothers were “tearing up the river” when they took the boat out by themselves, and the Court held that “one is only negligent in entrusting a boat to someone if the person to whom the boat is entrusted has a known habit or pattern of reckless driving.” That testimony was “insufficient as a matter of law to show that Steve had actual knowledge of a pattern or habit of recklessness by Joe.”
Gunn involved a boat, but it states the rule for any “instrumentality”, and the same test applies to cars. In Reid v. Morris (2020), a car owner handed his keys to a cousin he knew was drunk and without a valid license; the trial court found the owner liable for negligent entrustment, and the appeal to the Supreme Court of Georgia concerned the punitive damages ruling, not that finding. What matters is what the owner knew, and when.
When the knowledge requirement is met
Applied to lending a car, the categories point to concrete facts:
- The owner handed the keys to someone the owner saw drinking, or knew was impaired.
- The owner knew the borrower was too young or too inexperienced, for example that the borrower had never driven the kind of vehicle lent.
- The owner knew of a pattern: repeated crashes, citations, or reckless driving the owner had seen or been told about.
A record the owner never saw, such as a driving history in a state database, does not by itself show actual knowledge. Proof of what the owner knew can come from the owner’s own testimony, messages between the owner and the borrower, witnesses who saw the keys change hands, and earlier crashes or citations the owner had been told about.
What Georgia law does not say
O.C.G.A. § 51-2-2 is sometimes described as making a parent liable for a teenager’s driving because the parent signed the license application. Its text is: “Every person shall be liable for torts committed by his wife, his child, or his servant by his command or in the prosecution and within the scope of his business, whether the same are committed by negligence or voluntarily.” It says nothing about license applications. A parent’s liability for a child’s driving runs through the family purpose doctrine or negligent entrustment, each with its own elements; the first is explained in Georgia’s family purpose doctrine.
Employers and fleet owners
When the owner is an employer, the same actual-knowledge test governs entrustment, while negligent hiring uses a “knew or should have known” standard, and both claims can go to the jury even when the employer admits responsibility for its driver; see negligent hiring and entrustment claims against a trucking company.
Questions before lending, or after a crash
- What did the owner know about the borrower’s license, experience, and driving record?
- Was the borrower drinking or otherwise impaired when the keys changed hands, and did the owner see it?
- Had the owner seen or been told about prior reckless driving, more than once?
- Did the owner give permission at all? A car taken without permission was not entrusted; see vehicles driven without the owner’s permission.
Sources
- Gunn v. Booker, 259 Ga. 343 (1989)
- Reid v. Morris, 309 Ga. 230 (2020)
- Tuscany Condominium Ass’n v. C.P., No. A25A0145 (Ga. Ct. App. July 2, 2025)
- O.C.G.A. § 51-2-2 (text of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, November 2022 release; no amendment listed in the 2023 to 2026 summaries of general statutes enacted).
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.