Negligent Entrustment of Personal Property

If you entrust someone with personal property, and he or she injures someone with or when using the personal property, you may be liable to the injured party for “negligent entrustment.” In Missouri, the elements of negligent entrustment are: (1) the entrustee was incompetent by reason of age, inexperience, habitual recklessness or otherwise; (2) the entrustor knew or had reason to know of the entrustee’s incompetence; (3) there was entrustment of the personal property/chattel; and (4) the negligence of the entrustor concurred with the conduct of the entrustee to cause injuries to the plaintiff/third-party. Hays v. Royer, 384 S.W.3d 330, 333 (Mo. Ct. App. 2012).
While relatively rare, the most common circumstance in which negligent entrustment claims are brought deal with cars/automobiles (i.e., someone loans another a car and the borrower gets into an accident). Contact with questions. 

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