Q&A: The Principle of the Habitual Goring Ox
The Principle of the Habitual Goring Ox
Question
From reading the Wikipedia article on Shufersal:
In September 2011, the company was again convicted of the above offenses. A magistrate’s court judge in Rishon LeZion, Avraham Heyman, accepted a plea bargain under which Shufersal was fined 250,000 shekels for misleading consumers. This was because branches of the chain charged consumers prices higher than those marked on the products themselves. As part of the arrangement signed between the Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Labor (which filed the indictment on behalf of the state) and Shufersal, the chain also signed a commitment in the amount of 150,000 shekels not to commit a similar offense in the next two years. Personal undertakings in the amount of 1,500 shekels each were also signed by three branch managers of the chain [52].
On the face of it, the phrase “not to commit a similar offense in the next two years” is puzzling — was it permitted before? But on second thought it seems (without seeing the court ruling) that perhaps the principle of becoming established as dangerous applies here, and if Shufersal returns to its bad ways it will be held liable beyond the ordinary level of a non-habitual offender. In short, they got off cheaply.
Is becoming established as dangerous a broad principle that extends beyond the topics of the habitual goring ox, a person who causes damage, restoring the many, and “He who makes the rain fall”? And are there precedents for this in Hebrew law — something like a compromise and a signed undertaking not to go back to one’s old ways, and if one does return, then there is a “habitual-offender” fine?
Answer
I didn’t understand the question. The signing there is in order to fine them personally. A bit like vows made for encouragement.