“Hey buddy, can I borrow your car?”  The question seems innocent enough.  The answer, more often than not, is “of course you can, my good friend.”  However, at the risk of sounding uptight, letting someone borrow your car is like placing the deed to your home on the poker table.  It’s even worse than that, because at least in poker, there is a chance to win something tangible.

That’s because Michigan has a Civil Liability Act that makes the owner of a vehicle liable for the negligence of anyone who drives the vehicle with the owner’s knowledge or consent.  Specifically, MCL 257.401 states, “The owner of a motor vehicle is liable for an injury caused by the negligent operation of the motor vehicle whether the negligence consists of a violation of a statute of this state or the ordinary care standard required by common law. The owner is not liable unless the motor vehicle is being driven with his or her express or implied consent or knowledge.” 

That means that if you let your friend borrow your car to run an errand, and the friend runs a red light and runs over a group of schoolchildren, you will be liable for all of the injuries that your friend causes.  It is easy to see how this scenario would leave most people bankrupt.

Further, the Civil Liability Act goes on to state, “It is presumed that the motor vehicle is being driven with the knowledge and consent of the owner if it is driven at the time of the injury by his or her spouse, father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, or other immediate member of the family.”  That means that even if you tell your teenage son to nevr, ever, ever touch your Mercedes, and your son drives it anyway and injures someone, the burden will be on you to prove that you did not know your son was driving the car and did not allow him to do so if you hope to avoid liability.

In law school, first year students are introduced to the concept of “the reasonable man.”  That is a concept in the law that frequently comes up in the context of negligence analysis.  Those who behave like a reasonable man in like circumstances tend to avoid liability for negligence.  In the context of the Civil Liability Act, the reasonable man would never let anyone borrow his car – ever.  Not surprisingly, my law school study group developed a saying about the reasonable man: he may not have many friends, but at least he doesn’t have any problems.  

— Kassem Dakhlallah is a partner with Jaafar & Mahdi Law Group, P.C.  His practice focuses on complex litigation including class actions, representative actions, commercial litigation, civil forfeiture and personal injury. He can be reached at (313) 846-6400 and kassem@jaafarandmahdi.com.