Dov Szego (Of Counsel, McLean, VA) and Giovanna Bonafede (Associate, McLean, VA) obtained dismissal with prejudice on demurrer (Virginia failure to state a claim equivalent) in a negligent entrustment case. The plaintiff sued our client, a car leasing company, for alleged negligence in leasing a truck to a trucking company with a record of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration violations and to the driver of the leased truck, who had a criminal record. The plaintiff sought $5 million in damages for injuries she sustained in an accident involving the leased truck. Dov and Giovanna’s defense included the Graves Amendment, 49 U.S.C. § 30106, which provides: “An owner of a motor vehicle that rents or leases the vehicle to a person…shall not be liable under the law of any state or political subdivision thereof, by reason of being the owner of the vehicle…, for harm to persons or property that results or arises out of the use, operation, or possession of the vehicle during the period of the rental or lease.”  The statute has a carveout for “negligence or criminal wrongdoing on the part of the owner,” and the plaintiff argued that leasing to those with poor records constituted such negligence. The Circuit Court for the County of Chesterfield breezed past the Graves Amendment issue, and found that there is no legally recognizable duty for the lessor of a vehicle to do such vetting of lessees, noting that thousands of vehicles are rented every day yet such a theory had never been sustained in Virginia. The case proceeds against the driver of the rented vehicle and his employer, the trucking company that rented the vehicle.