When one's property causes damage, Jewish law may distinguish torts due to such factors as accidents, negligence, fault or willful fraud.
In the Shulchan Aruch (16th century), the topic is codified primarily within Hoshen Mishpat, the section (Tur) most similar to modern civil law.
The law of damages remained a popular and important topic throughout the history of rabbinic responsa literature, tapering off dramatically in the 19th century as European Jewish communities come under the jurisdiction of national legal systems.
The person injured or the owner of the things destroyed or depreciated is entitled to compensation and if necessary to seek redress in a civil court through litigation, which, in every system of jurisprudence, is governed by special laws.
The Torah deals with the law of negligence in Ex 21:28–36 and Ex 22:4–5, the leading cases being those of an ox goring a man or beast; an open, unprotected pit; fire spreading to a neighbor's property; also, to a certain extent, trespassing cattle.
[2] Any tame animal permitted willfully or carelessly to go on a neighbor's land, and which does mischief by knocking things over with its body, or by dragging them along by means of its hair, tail, harness, bridle, or yoke, or by the burden which it carries, or by rubbing against a post or wall, is a derivative of the "ox", while an animal breaking down a post or wall by rubbing against it, or defiling grain or grass with its excrements, is a derivative of the "chewer".
Derivatives of the "pit" are a stone, knife, burden, or a mound; in short, anything over which one can stumble or from which one can receive injury if left in the open, that is, on the highway or on common lands.
In ancient law, redress for injuries to the body takes the form of compensation to the person wronged, not of punishment in the name of the state; and this principle is found throughout the Talmudic jurisprudence.
4) ascribes this practice to the "Boethus men", with whom the Sadducees are often identified; and the varied efforts of many rabbis to give good scriptural grounds for their own theory[3] indicate that there were some who dissented from the Pharisaic interpretation.
However, the position is strengthened by the passage in Deuteronomy 22:28, 29, where he who forcibly seizes a damsel not betrothed and lies with her, is fined in the sum of fifty shekels, because (takhat asher) "he hath humbled her".
Where the pain is incident to a mutilation, the judges should say: "Suppose the wounded man to have been sentenced to have his hand cut off, how much would he be willing to pay to have it taken off under the influence of an anesthetic, rather than have it crudely hacked off; and this amount would serve to represent the damage".
He may not offer his own services, no matter what his skill may be; nor can he avoid the outlay of money by finding a physician that will do the healing work free of charge.
The wound may disappear and break out again and again: the cost of cure will still rest on the assailant; but if it be once fully healed (literally, "to its full need"), the liability comes to an end.
But for certain acts of violence that involve very little pain and no permanent disablement, but mainly disgrace, the sages fixed a scale of compensation, namely: for a stroke with the fist, one sela or shekel, for a slap with the open hand, two hundred zuzin, for a back-handed slap, or for pulling a man's ear or hair, or tearing off his cloak or a woman's headgear, or spitting at a person if the spittle reaches his flesh, four hundred zuzin.
Although Rabbi Meir's opinion, that all Israelites are to be treated as freemen and as freewomen, as "the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob", and are therefore entitled to the same compensation for disgrace,[7] has not been accepted generally, yet where the sum has been fixed by the sages, as shown above, no reduction is made on account of the poverty or low degree or even of the lack of self-respect of the party insulted.
There is a sixth element (which arises, however, but rarely); namely, the "price of children" (Exodus 21:22): "If men strive together and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart, and yet no mischief follow, ... he shall pay as the judges determine."
Another view is, however, expressed in the Mishnah to the effect that the "demei veladot" (the price of the child or children that were destroyed by the miscarriage) should be paid to the husband of the woman by the man causing the damage.
When a man strikes his father or mother so as to leave a mark ("ḥabburah"), or when he wounds any one on sabbath, he can not be sued for compensation; for he is deserving of death (קים ליה בדרבה מיניה).
While it was very unlikely that the offender would be put to death—for long before the days of the Mishnah capital punishment under the Mosaic law had ceased —still this excuse of the lesser offense by the greater was held good.
When parties complained of injuries, the judges, after hearing their allegations and the testimony of witnesses, indicated the sum that in their opinion the assailant should pay, and, upon his refusal, would threaten him with excommunication (Hebrew: נִדּוּי, romanized: nidúy) and this course would generally have the desired effect.
[27] When damages which usually follow a striking arise without actual contact with the body of the injured person—for instance, if one frighten his neighbor, or yell into his ears in such a way as to deafen him or otherwise make him ill—the wrong-doer is "free from human judgment", but liable to the punishment of heaven.
Whatever redress was given in cases with gentiles by Jewish courts was only a matter of equity, or, as the Rabbis say, by reference to Proverbs 3:17, "for the sake of the ways of peace" (Hebrew: דרכי שלום, romanized: darchei shalóm, lit. 'peace-way').
The subject is discussed by Maimonides in Mishneh Torah, Hovel u-Mazzik; in the Tur; and in the Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat, under the title Chovel ba-chavero (ch.
(Bava Kamma 8:7) Given the Jewish disregard for self-injury, rabbinic law also seeks to reduce the extent to which people put themselves into situations of potential danger.
Rabbis eventually overturned such questionable self-endangerment precedents, as when they allowed marriage to a woman who had more than one previous husband die (isha katlanit).
Furthermore, halakhah recognizes that there is no free lunch — people must expose themselves to occupational hazards in order to make a livelihood (Hebrew: פַּרְנָסָה, romanized: parnasá, lit.
For example, the Bible mentions hazardous work[31] and Talmudic literature sanctions jobs that require perilous sea crossings or caravan journeys.
Though "a man is always forewarned", that is, liable for his actions, asleep or awake, intentional or unintentional (see § Assault and battery), there is a broad exception to the rule, specifically, when the mischief is done on the ground of the injuring party.
On the strength of a case reported in Bava Batra 116a, it is also said that it is not only permissible but meritorious to kill an informer in order to put a stop to his villainous trade.
While others than scholars have no civil remedy for insult or slander, the act of "blanching a man's face in public" or that of "attaching a nickname to one's neighbor" is, as has been seen in Ona'ah, among the unpardonable sins punished in the future world.