Bava Kamma 33: Appraisal of Worth

Today’s daf is another list of cases to help the rabbis explain who pays for which damages in different circumstances. 

Asking about the welder who kills a person accidentally with a flying chip when that person enters his workshop, the rabbis wonder if the person was his apprentice.  We learn from this conversation that apprentices generally thought very highly of their mentors.   They would never be expected to enter a workshop if their mentor said to stay out. 

A particularly familiar example is that of a person who throws a stone and another person steps into the stone’s path, killing him/her.  Is the thrower of the stone liable?  The rabbis ask some questions in this case, but their answer is quite clear: the thrower of the stone is exempt, regardless of other details, if another person unexpectedly stands in the way of his/her stone.  This brings to mind the laws in place when a driver hits a person or a cyclist who suddenly run/ride in front of the car – which is like a thrown weapon, really.  Our legal system also takes into account the intentionality of the person at fault.

We also learn about salaried labourers who enter the domain of their employer to retrieve their earnings.  If they are gored by the owner’s ox or bitten by the owner’s dog, and they weren’t invited in, is the owner liable?  If so, for which damages?

A new Mishna teaches us about who pays whom when two oxen gore each other – when both are tam, when both are mo’ed, and when one is tam and the other is mo’ed.  Of course this is dependent on which ox does more damage to the other. Half-damages are generally paid when there is no forewarning while full damages – through one’s best land – are paid when the owner has been forewarned about his/her ox.

This is also discussed regarding a person who injures an ox while the ox injures a person.  People can never be tam, we have learned; we are always forewarned.  Does that mean that we must pay full damages if we injure an ox mare than it has injured us?  Rabbi Akiva teaches that it does not matter whether or not the ox was tam.  If an ox gores a person, the owner is considered to have been forewarned.

The Gemara determines that in the case of an ox goring another ox, only the cost of damages must be paid.  Unlike in the case of a person, where the four types of indemnity must be paid (loss of wages, pain, humiliation, medical costs), only damages for the injury itself are paid.

One last Mishna finishes off our daf through amud (b).  We are taught that when an ox worth one hundred dinars kills an ox worth two hundred dinars, and the carcass is worthless, the owner of the smaller ox should give that ox to the owner of the dead ox as payment of damages.

The Gemara asks a host of questions.  Some of those include:

• ·      how one should appraise the exact value of each ox
• ·      what to do if the ox were already consecrated to the Temple
• ·      whether or not a consecrated item can be sold in difficult circumstances
• ·      whether or not the meat of the ox could be sold to pay damages
• ·      whether or not damages must be paid through one’s superior-quality land
• ·      whether or not one can sell his/her liened property to pay damages (when we do not actually own our liened property)
• ·      circumstances where people are not liable for what they do to another person’s property