Q&A: Blocking Public Space
Blocking Public Space
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I have a storage room from which I bring goods in and out using heavy carts. A few months ago, someone opened a store near the storage room and placed, at the entrance on municipal public land, a kind of large, thin wooden platform, designed and painted. My workers went over the platform with the cart and it broke. I apologized and paid the owner of the platform 600 shekels, as he demanded. My workers can go another way, but it is less paved and longer, or they can move the platform. Goods are brought in and out of the storage room several times a day, and this whole story is costing me several hours of work a week, which I am paying for. That does not make me very happy. The store owner told me that he asked the municipality, and they told him that as far as they are concerned it is public land but unused, and they do not object to placing this platform there and do not require a fee for it, because people can still pass and it even beautified the area. But the area is public. In short, I am fed up. I demanded that the owner of the platform remove the annoying platform, and he refuses. We are both observant people. Is he allowed to do this according to Jewish law? Am I allowed to run over the platform with the carts so that it breaks and not pay? He is taking over public space and effectively blocking my way; I do not understand in what world this makes sense. Maybe I should plant flowers all around his store so he will not be able to step there?? I contacted the municipality, and in the end it turned out that they do not care. Platform, no platform—it does not matter to them, and they do not intend to intervene. Is there anything I can do besides get angry?
Thank you very much
Answer
At first glance, I think that if the municipality agrees to let him place things there, it is hard to make a halakhic or legal argument against him.
But now I recall that there may be grounds to permit you to pass through, and if it breaks that is his problem. The Mishnah in Bava Kamma 27b says that if someone places a jug in the public domain and another person comes along, bumps into it, and breaks it, he is exempt. That is exactly our case.
The Talmud there, on 27b, concludes that he is exempt because it is not a person’s normal way to look carefully at the road and be cautious, and therefore the owner of the jug should have watched out for him. This is also the ruling in Maimonides, Laws of Monetary Damages 13:5, and in the Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 412:1. Moreover, not only are you exempt, but if this platform causes you damage, he is obligated to compensate you.
The municipality’s permission to place the item there is irrelevant here. We are dealing with a situation in which there is permission to place the jug there, and the discussion is only about the duty to pay compensation if damage occurs. The Talmud in Bava Kamma 6a already notes that there are situations where you are allowed to place something in the public domain and still be liable for the damage it causes.
Bottom line: you should warn him that this is what you intend to do, and if he does not remove the platform, you may carry on there as usual, and if damage occurs you are exempt.
That is the Jewish law as I understand it. It would be worth checking with a lawyer about what the civil law says, because he could sue you in court, and there the outcome will not necessarily be the same as in Jewish law.