Is Car Rental Company Liable In Drunk Driving Accident

Vicarious liability is an important doctrine within personal injury law. Essentially, it means that one party can be held responsible for the failure of another. Vicarious liability can occur when the liable party and the responsible party have a special relationship, such as parent/child, employer/employee or vehicle owner/driver. But very few cases involving vicarious liability are straight forward.

For example, a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court recently ruled on a motor vehicle accident case involving a rental car company and the driver of the vehicle. The vehicle, which was owned by Enterprise, was involved in an accident that left two people injured. The driver of the rental car was drunk and was clearly at fault for the accident. The issue was, could Enterprise also be held liable?

The decision in this case centered on the fact that the drunk driver was not authorized to drive the vehicle by Enterprise. Instead, the vehicle had been rented by another woman and the drunk driver’s mother. The mother had been approved by Enterprise as an authorized driver and then gave her son permission to take the car to a party. The accident occurred while the son was on the way home from the party.

The couple that was injured in the accident claimed that Enterprise should be held vicariously liable for the actions of the driver but the judge presiding over the case disagreed. The judge wrote that the claim against Enterprise could only proceed if Enterprise owed a duty to protect the plaintiffs from acts committed by a “third party stranger.”

Ultimately, the judge reasoned that Enterprise did not have a duty to protect the plaintiffs from the drunk driver because he was never authorized to drive the vehicle. The judge did acknowledge that Enterprise had been negligent in renting the vehicle to the two women, but the accident involving the son was “so remote in the causal chain that Enterprise can not be held legally responsible as a matter of law.”

Source: The Pennsylvania Record, “Phila. judge grants summary judgment to Enterprise in vehicle accident case,” Jon Campisi, July 16, 2016