[Avodah] damage by children

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Aug 31, 2008 at 09:59:28AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote:
: what is the halachik responsibility of parents who are visiting
: someone and the smaller children cause damage in the house?

Is BB 5:9 (ie 87b) relevent? Someone who sends his son to the store with
some money to get some oil, and the child breaks the jug on the way home
and lost the change (a case my mother might remember well...): if the
son held the family's jug and the storeowner filled it, he is patur;
otherwise, the chakhammim require the storeowner reimberse (R Yehudah
does not).

The chakhamim hold the seller at fault for not assuming the boy was there
to give him the money and tell him to send the oil back with an adult.

It would seem that people are supposed to expect that these things happen
when kids are around. I know, it's a stretch; I'm really fishing for
some relevent maqor.

OTOH, what if the child is a "shor hamu'ad" and whle the parents know
they're raising Dennis the Menace, the host does not? Can one say he
knowingly incurred the risk when he invited them, since he knows that
some children are wilder than others, or would we allow the host to
assume the child is typical?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A sick person never rejects a healing procedure
micha at aishdas.org        as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what
http://www.aishdas.org   other people think when dealing with spiritual
Fax: (270) 514-1507      matters?              - Rav Yisrael Salanter