[Avodah] T'uM

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:
> On Wed, July 2, 2008 4:23 pm, Zev Sero wrote:
> :> He isn't dumping the money in good faith, is he?
> 
> : What does that even mean?  He didn't dump money, nobody dumps money.
> : He dumped (i.e. closed down) the business, presumably because it was
> : a losing proposition.  What did you expect him to do, keep on trading
> : anyway?  That *would* be fraud!
> 
> Wouldn't most suppliers like forewarning?

That's precisely why he can't continue trading once he knows for sure
that it's a lost cause.  Until then, do you think he has an obligation
to warn suppliers?  That would be a sure way to destroy the business,
and wouldn't that be defrauding his existing creditors?  Don't they
have a right to expect him to run the business in a responsible fashion
for as long as he can?


> Perhaps work out some kind
> of payment? Especially given the tightness of the old boy network,
> shouldn't he try to pay them before any assets are distributed to
> larger companies that could better afford the loss, or at least
> non-Jewish ones? (If you have to mess up someone's life, why one of
> our own?)

So you're proposing that he engage in fraud, hafka'as chov nochri,
and break DdM.  Now I'm not entirely averse to that idea, but please
realise what you have just said.  Hashma le'oznecha ma she'ata motzi
mipicha.   Now if he *did* something like this, in order to take care
of his Jewish creditors, I wouldn't condemn him, I might even applaud
him; but you're going further and *demanding* it of him, saying that
he has a moral obligation to do it, and condemning him for *not* doing
it, and I'm not sure I'm prepared to go so far.

I suggested in my first post on this subject that perhaps the creditors
thought there was some unspoken agreement "between us yidden" that he
would take care of them at the expense of his other creditors.  But
that involves him taking a risk; if he's caught he could get into
trouble for it.  Can one demand that of him?  Also, are you sure there
are enough non-Jewish creditors for him to pass over in order to pay
his Jewish ones?  Do you know whom else he owes?  I assume the bank
didn't lend to the LLC without adequate security, so he can't take it
out of them.  Who else is there?



> :> It's the wrong question because I asked a moral question, and RJCK
> :> was answering as a lawyer addressing the legal one.
> 
> : In this case the legal *is* the moral....
> 
> Odd thing for a chassid to say. Do you carry this into Yahadus as
> well, and do nothing beyond the letter of the chiyuv?

What more is there?  They lent to a LLC, which went under; what
obligation, moral or legal, did he accept?


> This is the postulate upon which our debate splits. 
> However, we know from the Rubashkin discussion that there are times
> you consider the law to be broader than morality.

Of course.  The law doesn't dictate morality.  When did I suggest
otherwise?  But the law does set out what sort of behaviour one can
expect from a businessman; his creditors had the right to expect him
to behave in that fashion and not more.  If he broke the law to their
detriment, they have a ta'anah against him; but here he didn't do that.
Had he broken the law to their benefit, they wouldn't have a ta'anah,
and indeed in this case it seems that you *want* him to.

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