May 6, 2022 – The owner of a stick-shift Jeep handed the keys over to a Jeep dealership for a routine oil change. A teenage dealer employee who reportedly wasn’t licensed to drive and didn’t know how to operate a stick-shift attempted to move the owner’s Jeep, when it lurched forward with enough force to kill a nearby service technician.
Because of the way the law works with regard to the legal principle known as vicarious liability, the family of the service tech isn’t suing the dealership—they’re suing the owner of the Jeep. Anything a driver does with an owner’s vehicle, it’s still the owner’s responsibility.
In this case, the Jeep owner gave permission to the dealership to drive the vehicle, and the dealership gave the keys to the unqualified employee, but the Jeep owner is still legally liable for whatever happens involving their vehicle.
