## Facts

- Scott Hays worked for and co-owned a funeral-services business with the Royer defendants and drove a company van alleged to be owned and/or controlled by them.
- Hays drove the van to a bar, became intoxicated, and died in a single-vehicle crash on his way home; no other person or vehicle was involved.
- Hays’s minor son and wife brought a wrongful-death action alleging negligent entrustment of the van.
- The petition alleged Royer knew or should have known Hays was an unsafe driver because he was habitually intoxicated, including: discussions about his drinking problem, prior episodes of intoxication at work, knowledge of inpatient alcohol treatment that did not stop his drinking, and knowledge he drank and drove the company van.
- Defendants moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim, arguing Missouri law imposes no duty to protect an adult from harm caused by the adult’s voluntary alcohol consumption.
- The circuit court dismissed the petition; plaintiffs appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Missouri recognizes a first-party negligent-entrustment claim by an entrustee (or his wrongful-death beneficiaries) against an entrustor when no third party is injured and the entrustee’s own negligence is a causal factor.
2. Whether allegations of defendants’ ownership and/or control over the vehicle, despite the decedent’s partial ownership of the business, can support pleading “entrustment” at the motion-to-dismiss stage.
3. Whether the petition’s allegations of the entrustor’s knowledge of the entrustee’s habitual intoxication and unsafe driving sufficiently state negligent entrustment.

## Decision

- The appellate court reversed the dismissal and remanded.
- It held Missouri law permits an entrustee (and thus wrongful-death beneficiaries standing in the entrustee’s place) to assert negligent entrustment against an entrustor even when no third party was harmed.
- The court concluded Missouri’s comparative-fault regime addresses the entrustee’s own negligence through allocation of fault rather than a categorical bar to the claim.
- At the pleading stage, allegations that defendants owned and/or controlled the van were sufficient to allege entrustment; partial ownership by the decedent did not defeat the claim as a matter of law.

## Legal Principles

- A Missouri wrongful-death claim requires that the decedent, if he had lived, would have had a viable cause of action; beneficiaries’ rights are dependent on the decedent’s underlying claim.
- On a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, courts accept pleaded facts as true and draw reasonable inferences supporting the claim.
- Negligent entrustment may be stated where a supplier entrusts a chattel to a person the supplier knows or should know is likely to use it in a manner involving unreasonable risk of physical harm.
- In a comparative-fault jurisdiction, an entrustee’s negligence does not automatically bar a negligent-entrustment claim; it is addressed through fault allocation.
- “Entrustment” turns on the right of control over the chattel at the relevant time; legal title or shared ownership does not necessarily preclude an entrustment theory at the pleading stage.

## Conclusion

The court held that Missouri recognizes a negligent-entrustment claim brought by an entrustee’s wrongful-death beneficiaries against an entrustor, even when the decedent’s intoxicated driving caused a single-vehicle crash and no third party was injured, and it reinstated the case because the petition adequately pleaded entrustment, knowledge, and resulting harm under Missouri’s comparative-fault framework.


Hays v. Royer, 384 S.W.3d 330 (Mo. Ct. App. W.D. 2012)