Vince v. Wilson, 561 A.2d 103 (Me. 1989)
Vince v. Wilson is a leading negligent entrustment case in which the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine (the Law Court) embraced Restatement (Second) of Torts § 390 and applied it to two non-driving defendants: an aunt who financed her nephew's purchase of a vehicle despite knowing he was unlicensed and inexperienced, and a car dealer who facilitated the sale with knowledge that the car was intended for the nephew.
Can a financer or intermediary (such as an aunt who provides funds) and a dealer who sells a car through an intermediary be liable for negligent entrustment under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 390 when they know or have reason to know the intended driver is unlicensed and likely to use the vehicle in a manner creating an unreasonable risk of harm?
Under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 390, one who supplies directly or through a third person a chattel for the use of another whom the supplier knows or has reason to know to be likely, because of youth, inexperience, intoxication, or otherwise, to use it in a manner involving unreasonable risk of physical harm to himself and others is subject to liability for the resulting harm. The concept of "supplying" includes sales, gifts, loans, financing arrangements, or other facilitation of access to the chattel; liability turns on foreseeability and the supplier's actual or constructive knowledge of the user's likely dangerous use.
Yes. The court recognized negligent entrustment consistent with Restatement § 390 and held that a jury could find that both Wilson (the aunt/financer) and the dealer negligently entrusted the vehicle to an incompetent, unlicensed driver. The grant of summary judgment for those defendants was vacated and the case remanded.
Vince v. Wilson is widely taught for its clear adoption and application of Restatement § 390 and its expansive, policy-driven view of who can be a negligent entrustor. It shows that ownership formalities are not determinative; liability turns on the practical reality of who enabled the incompetent driver to get behind the wheel with actual or constructive knowledge of the risk. The case is also a primer on proximate cause in entrustment claims: the entrustee's negligent driving is not a superseding cause but the very hazard contemplated by the duty. Procedurally, it highlights that summary judgment is inappropriate when reasonable jurors could differ on the extent of the supplier's knowledge and the foreseeability of harm.