18-Wheeler Accidents: Trucking Company vs. Driver Liability

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After a wreck with a tractor-trailer, the name painted on the cab door and the name of the business that employs or contracts with the driver may be different, and Georgia law asks a different question about each. The driver answers for the driver’s own negligence. Whether a company answers for it depends on the relationship between them, and a company can also face a claim for its own conduct in hiring, keeping, or entrusting a truck to a driver. A separate set of statutes decides when the company’s insurer can be sued in the same case.

The Employee Driver

A carrier that employs the driver is liable for the driver’s torts committed on its command or in the course of its business, negligent and willful alike (OCGA 51-2-2). That liability is vicarious: it rests on the servant’s tort.

In Quynn v. Hulsey, 310 Ga. 473 (2020), a truck owned by the driver’s employer struck and killed a pedestrian, and the employer had admitted that respondeat superior applied. The Court of Appeals had applied what the Supreme Court of Georgia called the “Respondeat Superior Rule,” under which an employer that concedes vicarious liability is “entitled to summary judgment on the plaintiff’s claims for negligent entrustment, hiring, training, supervision, and retention, unless the plaintiff has also brought a valid claim for punitive damages against the employer for its own independent negligence” (quoting Hospital Authority of Valdosta/Lowndes County v. Fender, 342 Ga. App. 13, 21 (2017)). The Supreme Court concluded that OCGA 51-12-33 “has abrogated the decisional law rule on which the Court of Appeals relied,” and reversed. The court explained that “apportionment of fault to the employer on account of its own negligence is not an apportionment of vicarious liability.” After Quynn, that rule no longer supports summary judgment for an employer that admits vicarious liability.

Leased Trucks and Independent Operators

An employer “generally is not responsible” for torts of an employee who runs an independent business and, in that business, answers to no immediate direction and control by the employer (OCGA 51-2-4). OCGA 51-2-5 then lists six situations in which an employer is liable for a contractor’s negligence, among them where the wrongful act violates a duty imposed by statute, and where the employer retains the right to direct or control the time and manner of executing the work, or interferes and assumes control so as to create the relation of master and servant or so that an injury results that is traceable to the interference (OCGA 51-2-5(4), (5)). The cases below apply that control test to leased trucks.

In Wright v. Transus, Inc., 209 Ga. App. 771 (1993), the court wrote that “the lease of a vehicle by the carrier, as opposed to its ownership, does not control the question whether the driver was engaged in the carrier’s business, under the evidence in this case,” and that “[t]his is an issue for the jury.” In PN Express, Inc. v. Zegel, 304 Ga. App. 672 (2010), the court held that a jury could find an oral lease “based on Surlina’s admission that such a lease was in effect, and on testimony that Surlina’s truck carried the PN Express logo.” The trial court had instructed that “[f]ederal motor carrier regulations require a motor carrier utilizing leased or rented equipment to have exclusive possession, control and use of the equipment for the duration of the lease.”

Brokers and Drivers Off the Job

Two other limits appear in the cases: a business that did not own, lease, or insure the truck, and a driver acting outside the scope of employment. In McLaine v. McLeod, 291 Ga. App. 335 (2008), the court applied OCGA 51-2-4 and affirmed for a cargo broker that “did not own or lease the tractor-trailer or any of the equipment used” and provided no insurance for it. In Blake v. Tribe Express, Inc., No. A21A0672 (Ga. Ct. App. Aug. 13, 2021), the court affirmed for a carrier because “the evidence is plain and undisputable” that a discharged driver “was not acting in the course and scope of his employment” when the driver left the truck eighty miles from the intended destination and ran into traffic.

The Company’s Own Negligence

A company can also be liable for its own conduct in hiring, retaining, or entrusting a truck to a driver. These claims are decided by the driver’s history and by what the company knew, or was required to find out, about it, so the proof centers on the driver’s record and the company’s own files. The decisions show how that plays out:

  • A duty to check. “Where the owner has a statutory duty to check on the driver’s qualifications, ‘the defendant would be precluded from the defense that it did not have actual knowledge of such incompetence on the part of the driver,'” the Court of Appeals wrote, itself quoting earlier authority, in reversing for the plaintiff in Smith v. Tommy Roberts Trucking Co., 209 Ga. App. 826 (1993); two judges dissented.
  • Notice of a dangerous record. In Onsite Communication Services, LLC v. Gooch, No. A26A0424 (Ga. Ct. App. June 24, 2026), the court affirmed the denial of summary judgment because there was “sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Onsite had actual or constructive knowledge of Parris’s drug use and his multiple speeding tickets,” and held, applying the 2021 version of OCGA 40-2-140, that the company was a motor carrier under that statute.
  • Different theories, different results. In Western Industries, Inc. v. Poole, 280 Ga. App. 378 (2006), a company truck case, the court held that the trial court “should have granted Western’s motion on the negligent entrustment and punitive damages claims, but did not err when it denied summary judgment on the negligent hiring and retention claim.”
  • No evidence of notice. In Bartja v. National Union Fire Insurance Co., 218 Ga. App. 815 (1995), the court affirmed for the defense where “[n]othing in the record indicates that Ready knew or should have known that McConico had a tendency to fall asleep at the wheel.”

Punitive damages against a company for a driver’s conduct are governed by OCGA 51-12-5.1. MasTec North America, Inc. v. Wilson, 325 Ga. App. 863 (2014), was decided under the Respondeat Superior Rule that Quynn later held abrogated.

Suing the Insurer in the Same Case

For a cause of action accruing on or after July 1, 2024, OCGA 40-1-112(c)(1) permits a person with a cause of action to join the motor carrier and its insurance carrier “only when” one or more related motor carriers “are insolvent or bankrupt,” or when personal service under OCGA 9-11-4(e) “cannot after reasonable diligence be effected” against the driver or the motor carrier. In that event the insurer may be joined “as a matter of right, without motion or order of the court, by filing an amended complaint,” and the amended complaint “shall relate back to the date of filing of the original pleading” (OCGA 40-1-112(c)(2), (3)). OCGA 40-2-140(d)(4), in the subsection on intrastate motor carriers, is written in the same terms and carries the same accrual date (Ga. L. 2024, p. 966, § 4), and Onsite states that “[t]he current version of OCGA § 40-2-140 became effective July 1, 2024.”

The text these provisions replaced permitted a person having a cause of action to join the motor carrier and the insurance carrier in the same action, without the insolvency and service conditions. In Daily Underwriters of America v. Williams, 354 Ga. App. 551 (2020), which applied the earlier versions, the court wrote that OCGA 40-1-112(c) “does not authorize those actions because it is applicable only to intrastate motor carriers. But the other direct action statute, OCGA § 40-2-140 (d) (4), which is applicable to interstate carriers, does authorize them.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Is fault split between a trucking company and its employee driver?
Not on a respondeat superior claim. In Transcontinental Carriers, Inc. v. Bennett, No. A26A1643 (Ga. Ct. App. Sept. 9, 2026), the Court of Appeals wrote that the principal “is entirely responsible for the agent’s negligence, and fault cannot be apportioned between the principal and the agent/tortfeasor.”

Is a shipper that loads a truck the carrier’s statutory employer?
Not on the record in Stubbs Oil Co. v. Price, No. A20A1377 (Ga. Ct. App. Oct. 19, 2020), where the court reversed the denial of summary judgment for a shipper because, “absent evidence of either a written or oral lease,” the shipper “simply cannot be characterized as a statutory employer.”

Can a carrier’s risk retention group be joined under the direct action statutes?
Not the group in Reis v. OOIDA Risk Retention Group, 303 Ga. 659 (2018), where the Supreme Court of Georgia held that “application of the direct action statutory provisions, OCGA §§ 40-1-112 (c), 40-2-140 (d) (4), to the risk retention group OOIDA is preempted by the LRRA.”

Can the carrier’s excess insurer be joined?
Not under the statute construed in Jackson v. Sluder, 256 Ga. App. 812 (2002), where the court wrote that “[n]othing in the statute mentions any other insurance or provides authorization for suit against the excess insurer.” That decision predates OCGA 40-1-112, which was enacted in 2012.

  • OCGA 51-2-2; OCGA 51-2-4; OCGA 51-2-5(4), (5); Quynn v. Hulsey, 310 Ga. 473 (2020), quoting Hospital Authority of Valdosta/Lowndes County v. Fender, 342 Ga. App. 13, 21 (2017); Transcontinental Carriers, Inc. v. Bennett, No. A26A1643 (Ga. Ct. App. Sept. 9, 2026)
  • Wright v. Transus, Inc., 209 Ga. App. 771 (1993); PN Express, Inc. v. Zegel, 304 Ga. App. 672 (2010); Stubbs Oil Co. v. Price, No. A20A1377 (Ga. Ct. App. Oct. 19, 2020); McLaine v. McLeod, 291 Ga. App. 335 (2008); Blake v. Tribe Express, Inc., No. A21A0672 (Ga. Ct. App. Aug. 13, 2021)
  • Smith v. Tommy Roberts Trucking Co., 209 Ga. App. 826 (1993); Western Industries, Inc. v. Poole, 280 Ga. App. 378 (2006); Onsite Communication Services, LLC v. Gooch, No. A26A0424 (Ga. Ct. App. June 24, 2026); Bartja v. National Union Fire Insurance Co., 218 Ga. App. 815 (1995); MasTec North America, Inc. v. Wilson, 325 Ga. App. 863 (2014); OCGA 51-12-5.1
  • OCGA 40-1-112(c); OCGA 40-2-140(d); Ga. L. 2024, p. 966, § 4; Daily Underwriters of America v. Williams, 354 Ga. App. 551 (2020); Reis v. OOIDA Risk Retention Group, 303 Ga. 659 (2018); Jackson v. Sluder, 256 Ga. App. 812 (2002)

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about liability in tractor-trailer accidents under Georgia law. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Who is responsible depends on the relationship among the driver, the carrier, and any other business, the insurance in place, and the specific facts. A person injured in a tractor-trailer accident should consult a licensed Georgia attorney promptly about the particular situation.

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