Q&A: A Deceitful Partner
A Deceitful Partner
Question
Hello Rabbi. One of the courses in my computer science degree is a “project” in machine learning. My partner and I decided to do something that compares two learning strategies on one problem: I would implement one strategy (a lot of work), and he would implement another strategy (also a lot of work), and then we would compare them according to various parameters. Because of prior knowledge from other courses, I don’t know how to do his part and he doesn’t know how to do mine.
In short, it turns out he did nothing! The whole semester he lied to me (I have the correspondence!) and told me what he had done, what he had seen, where things stood, and it was all a complete lie! He has explanations from here until the messianic era that he thought he would still manage at the last minute, and so he lied so that I wouldn’t worry!
We failed the course. The staff told me that as a partner it was my responsibility to make sure the project was actually progressing, and that they had no choice but to fail us. It’s impossible to register again, because they don’t allow repeating the course due to high demand. This got me into serious trouble, and many expensive work hours simply went down the drain!
In my specific case, I gave up on fighting with him or suing him because I don’t know what the chances are, and it’s also a huge headache. But it’s infuriating! And I started wondering whether it could be that according to Jewish law he simply doesn’t owe me anything??!! We didn’t make a formal contract, but we did divide up the tasks clearly (everything is in our documents and correspondence), and we are registered for the course as a team.
Can the Rabbi give his opinion? Not for practical ruling, only in principle.
Thank you very much
Answer
You mean to ask whether he owes you financial compensation? If your contract (implicitly) did not include such a clause, then it is very doubtful. At most he is only an indirect tortfeasor, if that. But of course there is a prohibition involved in what he did.
But under state law you might perhaps be able to sue him. It seems to me fairly easy to prove that he did not submit his part and the damage that this caused you.
Discussion on Answer
Thank you, Rabbi. Suing him is probably a serious headache, and I don’t have time as it is (family + studies + work + reserve duty).
As for the exceptions committee (thanks for your concern), of course I tried, but the TA in charge told me that he does understand me (and also said that the part I did is perfectly fine), “but the course is a joint project, not half a project for each person.” In other words, he said that this whole division into two separate parts is not acceptable from his perspective, because it does not fulfill the purpose of the course—to know and understand a complete project—and in a proper partnership this cannot happen. And after all, it was my responsibility to make sure and keep my finger on the pulse, and just because I was negligent and naive, they’re not going to take someone else out of the course in order to put me in. And giving me a grade based only on my part is something the lecturer will not approve, for his own reasons (maybe he doesn’t want this to become something people do intentionally). In short, I got burned. They helped me out a bit by allowing me to register for an advanced course for which the project is a prerequisite, even though I “failed” the project, and next semester they’ll let me register for the project.
I thought of something else. Am I allowed to threaten him with publicizing the whole story in the group of the entire faculty? Everything appears in black and white on WhatsApp, and I have emails from the staff, etc. etc., so everyone will believe it and the deceitful partner won’t be able to deny it, and it could definitely harm him and embarrass him. I demanded compensation of 3,000 shekels from him (which in my opinion is really the bare minimum—the very expensive hours I burned on the project and on running around afterward, and the disruption to my future schedule next semester). He isn’t willing to give a single shekel beyond a small apology message that he sent me, and according to him, “that’s part of life, things happen, I got screwed by this no less than you did, I didn’t plan this.”
So the question is: am I allowed to publicize it? And even if I’m not allowed to publicize it, maybe I’m allowed to use that as a threat? Truthfully, I’m very angry, but I don’t want to publicize it because the world is small and I’m not looking for enemies, and besides it’s unpleasant for me. But if publicizing is permitted, then I do want to threaten him with it.
To publicize it just like that is, in my opinion, forbidden. That is defamatory speech with no constructive purpose (unless you are concerned that he will do this to others as well). But threatening might be permitted, if you expect compensation from him that is owed to you. The problem is that according to Jewish law you are not owed compensation. If legally you are owed it (that should be clarified with a lawyer), then it seems to me that threatening publication would be permitted.
A side question:
In this case (assuming he is not concerned that the other person will do this to others as well), admittedly there is no constructive purpose because it already happened. But as a general allowance to publicize such events (if all the details are correct), there is constructive purpose from the outset. Why, regarding defamatory speech, do we look at the benefit in the specific incident rather than the benefit of the sweeping general rule?
He had a naive partner.
Isn’t it possible to ask for an exceptions committee because of what happened through no fault of your own? And maybe take such a course somewhere else and have them recognize it (I just now finished a course on this in Coursera).