Negligent entrustment in Georgia is a claim that arises where an owner provided something dangerous, such as a vehicle, to a person the owner knew or should have known was likely to use it unsafely. The claim focuses on the owner’s decision to entrust rather than on the owner’s own use.
It centers on the act of entrusting. The claim rests on the owner having handed a vehicle or other item to another person. That transfer is where the claim begins.
What the owner understood is decisive. Liability turns on what the owner had reason to grasp about that particular person, such as a known pattern of reckless or unlicensed driving. An owner who gave keys to someone known to drive drunk made a careless choice of their own.
It is the owner’s own negligence. Unlike a doctrine that passes another person’s fault to the owner, negligent entrustment rests on the owner’s careless decision to hand the item over. The fault being judged is that decision, not the driver’s conduct on the road.
What anchors the claim is the act of handing the item over, what the owner understood about the person receiving it, and the recognition that the carelessness is the owner’s own. Because the claim targets the owner’s own choice to hand over the item, it can reach an owner even where the driver alone was behind the wheel, provided the owner had reason to know that person was likely to drive unsafely.