Q&A: An Unpaid Helper Who Was Negligent
An Unpaid Helper Who Was Negligent
Question
Someone was asked in a WhatsApp message to turn off an electric blanket in a shared apartment and replied, “Sure.” He forgot to turn it off, and the blanket got scorched and was ruined. According to Jewish law, does he have to pay? I thought that if here he is an unpaid custodian of the blanket, or if he is like a paid worker, then he would be liable. But here he is an unpaid helper who was negligent through carelessness.
Answer
He is neither a custodian nor a worker. He wanted to do a favor and messed up. He is exempt from payment. Perhaps there is room to obligate him in the laws of Heaven as indirect causation.
Discussion on Answer
Because with an unpaid custodian there is an agreement, and here there is not. If someone just watches something for you for a moment as a favor, that is not an agreement, and he too would be exempt. At least in a case of negligence like forgetting, even if not in a case of active damage.
Why did you add “for a moment” (“watches something for you for a moment”)? If the request had been to turn off the electric blanket every evening and he agreed, and on day number 84 he forgot, then would he be liable? And what if he remembered but was lazy—he said to himself, “Today I don’t have the energy, let the blanket burn up”—then would he be liable?
Maybe yes. In such a case there is an agreement between them.
Maybe the Rabbi has a proof for this? Or is it simply that there is no source in the Talmud to obligate him, so he is not liable? What is the logic that an unpaid custodian, who also just wanted to do a favor and messed up, is liable, but this person is not? Why did this person just “mess up” and not “act negligently,” like an unpaid custodian who forgot to feed the cow?