One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת נִזְקֵי מָמוֹן
Damages to Property · Chapters 9-11
Sefer Nezikin · Paying Under Doubt • When the Animal Kills a Person • The Ransom, and the Condemned Animal
3
Killings that make an
animal forewarned to kill
30
Selaim for a servant,
worth a dinar or a fortune
1,000
Oxen in the mix, every
one of them stoned
½
A tam's damages, taken
only from its own body
Ch 9Nobody Pays on a Maybe
- The calf is her body, the egg is not. If a pregnant animal's own body will not cover the half damages, the balance is taken from its offspring, which counts as part of its body. A chicken's eggs are separate and distinct from it, so nothing is collected from them. (9:1)
- The burden of proof is on the claimant. A calf standing beside the cow that gored, with no proof she was carrying it at the time, yields nothing. A stillborn calf beside a cow that was gored, with no proof the blow caused it, yields payment for the cow alone. Whoever wants to expropriate money brings the proof. (9:2-3)
- Half damages are a fine, not a debt. Where the pursuing ox was mu'ad, its owner swears a rabbinic oath that he does not know and is clear. Where it was tam he does not even swear, since an admission to a fine with no witnesses carries no liability, so there is nothing an oath could protect. (9:6)
- Two oxen, one unknown culprit. Belonging to two owners, each points at the other and neither pays. Belonging to one man, he pays from the body of the cheaper animal, and nothing at all if that animal has died or been lost: prove it was this ox standing here. Where witnesses saw that one of his animals did it, he pays what he admits. (9:7-10)
RememberSeize the goring animal to collect from its body and you have become a paid watchman over it, so the next damage it does is yours and not its owner's.
Ch 10When It Kills a Person
- Stoned either way; the ransom is the only difference. Any animal, beast or fowl that kills a human being is stoned, tam or mu'ad, adult victim or child. What forewarning adds is kofer, the atonement payment, owed by the owner of a mu'ad and never by the owner of a tam. (10:1-2)
- How an animal becomes forewarned to kill. It killed three times and fled each time and was caught on the fourth; or killed three gentiles, or three who were t'refah, or three animals. Or three times witnesses recognized the owner but not which animal: he pays, since he was warned that something in his herd kills and should have guarded all of them. (10:3)
- The ransom is for atonement and is still seized by force. "Its owner shall also be put to death" means at the hand of Heaven, and paying the kofer pardons him, yet the court expropriates it against his will. Two partners each pay a whole kofer, since each requires a full measure of atonement. Guardians pay damages and never kofer. (10:4-6)
- Intent, and whose will acted. Set your dog on a man and the dog is not stoned; set a snake and the snake is, since it releases its venom on its own. An animal aiming at an animal that killed a man is not stoned, though a mu'ad's owner pays kofer even for an unintended death. No kofer at all where it kills inside the owner's own domain. (10:8-11)
RememberHe called at the gate and you answered yes, and he was gored inside: no ransom is owed, because yes means only stand there until I come out to you.
Ch 11The Sum, and the Condemned Animal
- The ransom of a soul, assessed or fixed. For a free person the judges assess what the one who was killed was worth. For a servant the Torah fixes thirty selaim of pure silver, whether he was worth a hundred maneh or a single dinar, and a servant who lacks only his bill of release carries no fine, since he has no master. (11:1)
- What the law will not price. An animal that gores a pregnant woman pays nothing for the fetus even when mu'ad, since that obligation comes from a verse about men who were fighting. For a pregnant maidservant it does pay, exactly as for a pregnant donkey, measured by her worth before against her worth now. (11:3-5)
- After sentence, the owner owns nothing. Consecration fails, a sale is void, a declaration of ownerless fails, a watchman's return does not count, and the meat is forbidden; before sentence every one of those acts works. Where sentence came first, the court hires the animal out until its wages cover the damage, then executes it. (11:8-9)
- A living animal is never nullified. Mix a sentenced animal into a thousand after sentence and all thousand are stoned and buried, because a live creature is too significant to disappear into a majority. Mixed in before sentence, none of them is liable, since judgment must be concluded in the animal's presence. (11:10)
RememberWhen the witnesses are exposed as liars, whoever grabs the ox acquires it, because the owner had already given up on it; but a man falsely accused of sinning with his animal never despaired, since he knew the truth and waited.