Bava Kamma 62 - Fire Accidents (Torts)

If one sets fire to a large house, he pays for everything inside it. The house owner must take an oath about the value and be reasonably expected to have such items.

One is liable for direct or immediate damages, not indirect or delayed ones.

Suppose a camel laden with flax passed through the street, and its flax protruded into a shop and was ignited by the shopkeeper's lamp and set fire to a large tower; the owner of the camel is liable. If the shopkeeper puts his lamp outside, the shopkeeper is liable. Rabbi Yehuda says that the shopkeeper is not liable for a Hanukkah light.

Art: Arabs and Camels in a Courtyard by Marie Nivoulies

Bava Kamma 61 - Distance For Fire, Hidden Utensils (Torts)

If one lights a fire within his own property, how far should it be from the nearest neighbor's property in order not to be liable?

* Rabbi Elazar Ben Azaria: about 400 feet;
* Rabbi Eliezer: about 50 feet, like a public road;
* Rabbi Akiva: about 150 feet;
* Rabbi Shimon (accepted ruling): "...the one who ignited the fire shall pay..." - all depends on the fire's size.

If one sets fire to a stack of grain and utensils hidden in it, and they are burned, what are the liabilities?

* Rabbi Yehudah: he pays for what was inside;
* Sages: he pays only for the stack.

Art: A Cottage on Fire at Night by Joseph Wright Of Derby

Bava Kamma 60 - The Owner of Fire Will Repay (Torts)

If one sends a fire in the hands of a deaf-mute, a deranged person, or a minor, the sender is not liable under the laws of man, but he is liable under Heaven's laws. If he sent fire in the hands of a mentally competent person, the sent one is liable.

If one brought the fire and another brought the wood and put it in fire, the second one is liable. If another person fanned it, he is liable. If the wind fanned it, all are exempt.

If one sends a fire and it consumes wood, stones, or earth of another, he is liable.

Art: Woman Stoking A Stove by Pierre Auguste Renoir

Bava Kamma 59 - Wearing Black Shoes in the Marketplace (Torts)

Eliezer the Younger was wearing black shoes, as is the custom of mourners, and was standing in the marketplace of Nahardea. Officers of the House of the Exilarch asked, “What is different with these shoes?” He answered, “Because I am mourning over the destruction of Jerusalem.”

They asked, “Are you so important?” and imprisoned him for haughtiness. He said, “I am a great scholar.”

They asked, “How do we know?” He said, “Ask me a question, or I will ask  you.”

He confused them with questions about damage payments for cutting budding dates, and they released him.

Art: A Pair Of Shoes by Van Gogh

Bava Kamma 58 - An Animal That Fell into a Garden (Torts)

If an animal fell into a garden and was saved from injury by the produce, the owner pays for the benefit of saving it from injury. The owner can't claim that his friend was doing a mitzvah saving his animal.

If the animal continues eating, the owner pays for not having to feed it next time. Once the animal knows its way to the garden, the owner is liable if he doesn't watch it more closely.

If the owner was negligent and has to pay full damages in the field, they are estimated as a  loss in value of a field sixty times larger, with similar damage.

Art: Animal Study by Nicolaes Berchem

Bava Kamma 57 - Caring for the Lost Object, Too Much Responsibility? (Torts)

Is the finder of a lost object treated as a paid custodian, liable even if the object is stolen or lost, or as an unpaid custodian, liable only for negligence?

Ruling: if the finder returned it where the owner will see it, he is not obligated to deal with it further, but if it was stolen or lost, he is responsible. Doesn't it follow that it was stolen or lost from the finder's home, and he is thus a paid custodian? No! It was stolen from the place where he returned it, because he returned it in the afternoon, too late for the owner to see it.

Art: Lost In Thought by Marcus Stone

Bava Kamma 56 - Not Liable in Court but Liable in Heaven (Torts)

There are four cases of monetary loss for which the perpetrator is not liable to pay under the law of man. Still, he is liable under the law of Heaven (because one is not liable for causing damage indirectly):

• One who breaches a wall before his fellow's animal (the animal exited its enclosure and fled);
• One who bends his fellow's standing grain toward a fire (the fire then reaches the grain with the aid of an unusually strong wind);
• One who hires false witnesses to testify (on behalf of his fellow);
• One who knows testimony beneficial to his fellow but does not testify on his behalf.

Art: A Breach of Promise by Walter-Dendy Sadler

Bava Kamma 55 - Guard Your Animal (Torts)

One who brought a sheep into a fold and properly locked the gate after it, but it escaped and damaged the property of another, is not liable to pay for the damage; one who didn't properly lock the gate is liable.

If the fold was breached at night, or robbers breached it, he is not liable; if the robbers took the sheep out, they are liable.

If he left the sheep in the sun or gave it over to a deaf-mute, deranged, or minor, and it escaped and damaged, he is liable; if he gave it to a shepherd, the shepherd assumes the responsibility.

Art: Grazing Sheep with a Sheperdhess Beyond by Charles Emile Jacque

Bava Kamma 54 - All Animals are Equal in Front of the Law (Torts)

The same law that applies to an ox also applies to any domestic animal regarding the following:

1. Payment of damages for its falling into a pit, 
   
2. forceful separation from Mount Sinai at the Giving of the Torah, 
   
3. the twofold payment a thief must make for stealing an animal, 
   
4. returning a lost object,
   
5. unloading an animal,
   
6. prohibition of muzzling an animal when it is threshing,
   
7. prohibition of mating or plowing with diverse species together,
   
8. prohibition of having one's animal work on Sabbath.

Moreover, any wild beast or bird is legally the same.
Why is an ox or donkey explicitly mentioned? Because Scripture speaks of the usual case.

Art: Donkeys, horse and pigs by a barn in a farmyard by James Ward

Bava Kamma 53 - A Man and An Ox Together Push another Ox into a Pit (Torts)

If a worker digs a pit, he, and not his employer, is liable for the damages - because "there is no messenger for transgression," and it is forbidden to create damaging obstacles in the public domain.

If someone pushes an ox into a pit or startles the animal and it falls, the owner of the pit is liable for whatever can't be collected from the first man.

If an ox and a person together push either a person or an animal or utensils into a pit, all (the person, the ox, and the pit) are liable for damages. Still, only a human is liable for the "four payments."

Art: The Gold Diggers by John Quidor

Bava Kamma 52 - A Pit that is Open (Torts)

A pit of two partners – if the first partner covered it after he used it, and the second one came to use it and found it uncovered (worms ate the lid) and didn't cover it, the second one is exclusively liable for any damage that it does.

If one covered a pit properly and nevertheless an ox or a donkey fell into it and died, he is exempt.

If an ox with its utensils fell into a pit and the utensils broke, the pit owner is liable to pay for the damage to the animal but is exempt from paying for damage to the utensils.

Art: Hamlet and the Gravediggers by Pascal-Adolphe-Jean Dagnan-Bouveret

Bava Kamma 51 - A Pit of Two Partners (Torts)

If there is a pit of two partners, and the first one passed by and did not cover it, and then the second one passed by it and did not cover it, the second one is liable to pay for the damage it causes.

But the first one was also negligent! In this case, he handed over the pit's cover to the second one.

But how can a pit of two partners exist? The one who completed it is liable! In this case, one dug a pit nine hand-breadths deep and then they both simultaneously uprooted a clump of earth from its bottom.

Art: Ditchdiggers by Vincent Van Gogh

Bava Kamma 50 - Donkey Falls Into a Pit (Torts)

If one digs a pit in the public domain and an ox or a donkey falls into it, he is liable to pay the damages.

Whatever shape one digs, he is liable to pay for the damage his excavation causes. If so, why is specifically a pit mentioned in the Torah? Just as a standard pit has sufficient depth to cause death, being ten hand-breadths deep, one is liable for any obstacle that has sufficient depth to cause death.

One is not liable for the death of a donkey in a pit less than 10 hand-breadths but is liable for the injury.

Art: Peasant Children with Donkeys by Edgar Bundy

Bava Kamma 49 - Damages to a Pregnant Woman (Torts)

If an ox intended to gore its fellow ox, and it struck a pregnant woman instead, and her offspring were miscarried, the ox's owner is exempt from paying for the value of the offspring.

But if a person intended to strike his fellow and instead struck a pregnant woman and her offspring were miscarried, he must pay her husband the full value of the offspring. For this, they assess how much she was worth before giving birth and how much after miscarriage, using prices of the slave market. Of course, if the woman suffered an additional injury, that damage is assessed separately.

Art: The Pregnant Woman by Thomas Rowlandson

Bava Kamma 48 - An Ox Falls into a Cistern and Kills Someone (Torts)

If one brought his ox into a homeowner's courtyard without permission and the homeowner's ox gored it, or the homeowner's dog bit it, the homeowner is exempt from liability. If the trespasser's ox gored the homeowner's ox, the trespasser is liable.

If the trespasser's ox fell into the homeowner's cistern and fouled its waters, the trespasser is liable. If the homeowner's father or son was in the cistern and was killed by the falling ox, the trespasser must pay redemption reparation. But if he brought his ox into the courtyard with the owner's permission and it was damaged there, the courtyard's owner is liable.

Art: At The Well by William Sidney Mount

Bava Kamma 47 - Someone's Things in My Courtyard! (Torts)

If a potter brought his pots into a homeowner's courtyard without permission, and the homeowner's animal broke the pots, the homeowner is exempt from liability. If the homeowner's animal was damaged through the pots, the owner of the pots is liable to pay for the damage. But if he brought his pots with the homeowner's permission and they were broken, the owner of the courtyard is liable.

The same laws are valid if one brought his produce into a courtyard and an animal ate or harmed it.

Rebbi says: "The homeowner is not liable unless he explicitly accepts the obligation to guard it."

Art: Pottery Shop at Tunis by Willard Leroy Metcalf

Bava Kamma 46 - Money In Doubt (Torts)

If an ox gored a pregnant cow and killed it, and the cow's fetus was found at its side, but it is not known whether the cow gave birth before the ox gored it and the fetus' death is unrelated to goring, or it gave birth after the ox gored it and the goring caused it to miscarry - the ox's owner pays half damages for the cow and one-quarter damages for the offspring.

Sumchos: money whose ownership is in doubt is divided by litigants.

Sages: The one seeking to exact payment from his fellow bears the burden of proof!

Art: New Born Calf Lying On Straw by Vincent Van Gogh

Bava Kamma 45 - Custodian Is Responsible for Damages as the Owner (Torts)

If the owner of an animal entrusted it to the care of an unpaid custodian, a borrower, a paid custodian, or a renter, and then the animal damaged something, the custodian is responsible for the damage as if he would have been the owner.

Laws of Custodians

An unpaid custodian is responsible only for damage resulting from his negligence.

A paid custodian is responsible if the item is stolen or lost but not for unavoidable mishaps, such as an animal that broke a limb, was captured by armed brigands, or died of natural causes.

A borrower is liable for theft, loss, and unavoidable mishap but not for damage or loss incurred through regular use.

Art: A Yeoman of the Guard by Sir John Everett Millais

Bava Kamma 44 - An Ox That Did Not Mean To Kill (Torts)

"...whether it gores a boy or it gores a girl..."  Wouldn't I know it by logic: a man is liable for killing a man, whether adult or minor, and an ox is liable for killing a man – must be, whether adult or minor? No, man's law is more strict, with liability for pain, cure, etc. Therefore, the verse is needed.

If an ox was rubbing itself against the wall and the wall collapsed on a man and killed him, or if the ox intended to kill an animal but instead killed man, or to kill a Canaanite but instead killed a Jew, the ox is exempt.

Art: A Wall in Naples by Thomas Jones

Bava Kamma 43 - Damages Collected After Death (Torts)

What does the phrase "...and it killed a man or a woman..." teach us? To make the owner of a goring ox liable to redemption payment for the killing of a woman as for a man? No, it is already written: "...if an ox shall gore a man or a woman..."  

Instead, to equate a woman with a man in damages: if a man dies before collecting, his damage payments go to his heirs, so too does a woman - her damage payments go to her heirs and not to her husband – because the husband inherits only the actual assets that the wife possessed at the time of her death.

Art: Edmond And Therese Morbilli by Edgar Degas

Bava Kamma 42 - Can't Benefit From This Ox (Torts)

"If an ox shall gore a man or a woman and he shall die, the ox shall surely be stoned; its flesh may not be eaten, and the owner of the ox shall be innocent."

Since "... the ox shall surely be stoned..." means that it died without proper slaughtering and is forbidden for consumption, "...its flesh may not be eaten..." teaches that even if the owner slaughtered it, its meat is still prohibited.

And "...the owner of the ox shall be innocent (clean)..." teaches that he can't sell it, as people say, "so-and-so has gone out clean of his possessions."

Art: Cook with Food by Frans Snyders

Bava Kamma 41 - An Ox Kills a Man (Torts)

If an ox gored a person and he died, then if the ox was warned for goring, its owner pays redemption payment, and if it was innocent, he is exempt from redemption, but in both cases, the ox is liable to death.

The same law holds where the victim was a minor.

If the ox gored a Canaanite slave or a maidservant, the ox is stoned, and the owner gives thirty sela (about $5,000) no matter whether the slave is worth a hundred times more or a hundred times less than this amount.

Art: The Dead Alchemist by Elihu Vedder

Bava Kamma 40 - Borrowing a Goring Ox By Mistake (Torts)

If one borrowed an ox on the assumption that it is innocent and is found to have been warned for goring, then if it is under the borrower's care, the owner pays half-damages, while under the borrower's car, he pays full damages.

But why? 

Borrower: "I borrowed an ox, not a lion!" 

Owner: "I told you it was aggressive, so you had to guard it. And even if it were innocent, you would pay half the damages."

Borrower: "For the innocent, the payment comes from its body."

Owner: "Even so, you would then repay me for the ox."

Art: Lion by William Huggins

Bava Kamma 39 - Deaf-Mute, Deranged, and Minor Who Damage (Torts)

If the ox of a competent person gored the ox of a deaf-mute from birth, deranged, or a minor, the owner is liable, but in the reverse situation, the owner is exempt.

If the ox of an incompetent person gored someone, the court appoints an agent to watch over the ox and then accepts testimony in the agent's presence. Rabbi Meir says that the goring ox reverts to innocence if the minor becomes an adult, but Rabbi Yehudah says it remains warned.

Ordinarily, an ox that kills a man is put to death, but it is not liable if an ox of the arena kills.

Art: Corrida De Toros by Ricardo Canals y Llambi

Bava Kamma 38 - The Ox of One's Fellow (Torts)

If the ox of a Jew gored an ox of the Temple treasury, or if an ox of the Temple treasury gored the ox of a Jew, the owner is exempt: "...ox of his fellow..." - and not an ox of the Temple treasury.

If the ox of a Jew gored the ox of a Canaanite, the Jew was exempt. Still, if the ox of a Canaanite gored the ox of a Jew, the Canaanite paid full damages – a penalty on Canaanites who had no court system and were generally not careful about other people's possessions (Meiri), thus not applicable today.

Art: A Husbandman with his Herd by Paulus Potter

Bava Kamma 37 - At Times, Innocent, at Other Times, Malicious (Torts)

Chanan the Wicked delivered a blow to the ear of a particular person. Rav Huna told Chanan, "Give the victim half a zuz." Chanan had a worn-out zuz but couldn't change it. He delivered a second blow to the other ear and gave the person the zuz.

If an ox is warned regarding its own species but not other species, or regarding young animals but not mature animals, the owner pays full damages where warned but half damages where he was not warned. Students asked Rabbi Yehudah about an ox warned for goring on Sabbath. He said, "For goring on Sabbath, he pays full damages, on weekdays, half-damages."

Art: Autoportrait by Van-Gogh

Bava Kamma 36 - One Innocent Ox Gores Many (Torts)

If one ox gores many oxen while remaining innocent (Tam), its owner pays the owner of the last of the gored oxen his half-damage payment from the body of the ox that gored. If the ox is worth more than this payment, the excess goes to the one before, and so on - says Rabbi Meir. Why this order? In this case, each successive damaged party seized the ox as payment and became its guardian.

Rabbi Shimon says that the owners immediately become partners in the goring ox. Thus, each successive victim bears part of the responsibility for the further gorings, paying, for example, 100 zuz, 50, and 25, respectively.

Art: Buffalo Bulls Fighting in Running Season, Upper Missouri by George Catlin

Bava Kamma 35 - Oxen in Hot Pursuit (Torts)

Imagine an ox was pursuing another ox, and the pursued ox was later found damaged. The damaged party says: "Your ox caused the damage," but the owner of the pursuing ox says, "Not so; it injured itself on a rock." The burden of proof rests on the one who seeks to exact money from his fellow.

If two oxen were pursuing an ox and it was later found damaged, and the owner of one pursuing ox says, "Your ox did the damage," but the owner of the other states, "No, your ox did the damage" - both are exempt, because each can shift the blame to the other.

Art: The team of oxen breaks loose by Teutwart Schmitson