[Avodah] The Kiddushin "raid" in Lakewood

[Zev Sero]

arnold.lustiger at exxonmobil.com wrote:
> About a month ago, a Lakewood bochur got married. Before the wedding, he
> had given the ring to his sister for safekeeping, who then returmed it to
> him to perform the actual kiddushin. A few days later, in the middle of the
> week of sheva brachos, the sister discovered that she had mistakenly given
> her brother her own wedding ring, not the one that  he had originally given
> to her.

Why not say that since the two rings were obviously similar enough that
they could be easily confused, and are probably of exactly the same
value, when he accepted his sister's ring as a return of his pikadon
he absolved her of any further duties as a shomeret, and effectively
swapped his ring for hers?  His ring became her property, the ring she
gave him became his property and is now his wife's, and if the sister
and wife each want their "own" rings that's entirely a matter between
them.  Any reason we couldn't say this?

In a case of mekach ta'ut, we say "pachut mishtut eino chozer"; this
is certainly less than a shtut.  True, there was no intention to
transact any sort of mekach at all.  But can we compare the cases?

What if, between the mistake and its discovery, the sister's house
had been burglarised and the ring in her possession had been stolen?
Could she claim that the ring in her sister-in-law's possession was
really hers and must be returned, while the stolen ring was not hers,
and as a shomeret chinam she is not responsible for geneva?  Or
would her brother be able to say "you got a ring and you gave a ring,
our deal is concluded, and the ring that was stolen was yours"?

Similarly, what if the returned ring had been stolen from the chatan
or kalah, or lost by them, even through their own negligence?  What
exactly is their responsibility for an item that they in good faith
believed to be theirs?


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas