“Negligent entrustment” is a well-established doctrine in tort law.
It is negligence to permit a third person to use a thing or engage in an activity under the control of the actor, where the actor knows or ought reasonably to know that such a person is likely to use it in a manner that creates an unreasonable risk of harm to others.
Traditionally rooted in civil liability, the doctrine has increasingly influenced criminal jurisprudence across several common law jurisdictions. At its core, it imposes responsibility on a person who supplies or permits the use of a dangerous instrument such as a motor vehicle while knowing, or having reason to know, that the user is incompetent, unlicensed, or otherwise incapable of safe use.
In the United States, courts frequently apply this doctrine in cases involving parents who allow minors to operate vehicles unlawfully. It operates alongside principles such as the Family Purpose Doctrine, which imposes liability on the head of a household for negligent use of a family vehicle.
Modern criminal law recognizes that liability may not be confined to the immediate actor. It may extend to those whose reckless conduct creates the conditions for harm.
Criminal law acknowledges that recklessness, in the form of conscious disregard of risk, may satisfy mens rea and a person who entrusts a dangerous instrument to an incompetent user may be criminally culpable for foreseeable consequences.
Thus, negligent entrustment when sufficiently egregious crosses the threshold from civil wrong into criminal culpability, particularly where death or serious injury results.
The conviction of Richard Seymour Ferguson in Florida in October 2025 illustrate how courts in the United States confront this rather concerning issue and raises serious questions as to the approaches in confronting such cases in Ghana.
The Ferguson Case
In September 2023, Richard Seymour Ferguson, a resident of Florida, permitted his 15-year-old son who had no driver’s license or driving permit, to take the family car.
According to investigators, Ferguson even moved another vehicle from the driveway to allow the teenager to leave with the car.
The teenager drove away with several friends. Shortly thereafter, tragedy struck.
Driving at speeds estimated between 76 and 87 miles per hour in a 30-mph residential zone, the teenager ran a stop sign and collided with another vehicle carrying members of the Hernandez family. The crash killed four people, a grandmother and three children while another family member survived with serious injuries.
Prosecutors charged Ferguson with four counts of manslaughter by culpable negligence, arguing that his decision to allow an unlicensed minor to drive constituted reckless disregard for human life.
The jury found Ferguson guilty on all four counts, and he was later sentenced to over 37 years’ imprisonment.
The prosecution’s case rested on a straightforward principle, a parent who knowingly places a dangerous instrument in the hands of an incompetent minor may be criminally responsible for the foreseeable consequences.
The Case of Bishop Salifu Amoaku’s son.
Bishop Salifu Amoaku’s son was a 16-year-old minor.
On 12 October 2024, during a birthday event in East Legon, he obtained the keys to a Jaguar F-Pace from a custodian and drove the vehicle without a valid driver’s license.
He joined friends in a convoy and engaged in reckless high-speed driving.
At a junction, he rammed into another vehicle, causing a violent collision and both vehicles burst into flames thereby resulting in the death of two young girls trapped in the vehicle.
Further evidence indicated he had regular access to vehicles despite being underage and his conduct fell far below that of a reasonable driver.
Initially, he pleaded not guilty on eight counts but later changed his plea to guilty on two counts of manslaughter, negligently causing harm, dangerous driving and driving without a license.
The issue before the court was whether a juvenile who causes death through reckless driving can be held criminally liable for manslaughter, and what the appropriate punishment should be under Ghana’s juvenile justice regime.
The court convicted him on his own guilty plea and sentenced him to 6 months’ detention at a Senior Correctional Center. Bishop Salifu Amoaku and his wife were fined GH₵12,000 for failure to supervise and ordered to pay for property damage.
Comparative Analysis
The divergence between the Ferguson case and the East Legon case lies not in moral culpability, but in prosecutorial strategy and evidentiary development.
In Ferguson, the prosecution constructed a chain of causation. Knowledge, Facilitation, Foreseeable harm and resulting Death. Available evidence showed active parental involvement.
In Amoaku, available information suggests no clear proof of authorization or facilitation by the parents and there was insufficient evidence to establish recklessness rising to criminal culpability.
Thus, while the tragic outcomes are comparable, the legal consequences differ because of the evidentiary threshold required in criminal law, proof beyond reasonable doubt.
Ghana’s Legal Gap
Ghana’s criminal law, particularly under the Criminal and Other Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29), recognizes Manslaughter through negligence, and Liability for reckless disregard for human life. However, there is a practical enforcement gap. Prosecutors rarely pursue derivative liability against parents or custodians and investigations often fail to rigorously establish, Prior knowledge, Patterns of access, and express permission.
This results in a system where the immediate actor (the minor) bears liability while those who created the enabling environment escape with minimal sanctions.
The deaths in both Florida and East Legon expose a sobering reality, one moment of parental negligence can annihilate entire families.
Ghana must move beyond a reactive approach and adopt a deliberate, aggressive prosecutorial strategy in cases involving underage access to dangerous instrumentalities.
Such a strategy should include:
- Pattern-Based Prosecution: Demonstrating that the minor had habitual access to vehicles (Amoaku’s son), thereby establishing constructive knowledge.
- Expanded Use of Recklessness: Framing parental conduct as reckless disregard for human life, not mere negligence.
- Proximate Cause Argumentation to draw a direct line between entrustment, risk creation and fatal outcomes.
I must however state that Ghana does not necessarily lack the legal tools to address negligent entrustment. It lacks prosecutorial assertiveness in deploying them.
Until prosecutors begin to treat parental facilitation of unlawful driving as a serious criminal enterprise rather than a peripheral lapse, the law will continue to punish outcomes while ignoring their origins.
An aggressive prosecutorial posture will not only ensure accountability but will serve a critical deterrent function, signalling unequivocally that entrusting a dangerous instrument to an incompetent minor is not merely careless. It is criminal, and it would be prosecuted as such.
By Jonathan Balinia Adda, Esq., Houston, Texas.
