[Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person?

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 22/08/16 17:32, Micha Berger wrote:
> I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will
> still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too
> rare to support a real ever Ivri market.
>
> So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them,
> and no market price.

It should be obvious that nezek is estimated as the reduction in the
victim's value as an eved kenaani, i.e. kinyan haguf rather than kinyan
mamon.   And that market may well return in yemos hamoshiach.


> Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke?

Perhaps they will adopt the system civil courts use today.


> BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current
> loss of value, not future earnings lost.

As you say, current value includes projected future earnings.  That's why
sheves is not paid according to his old job but according to what he could
have earned now if he were not in a hospital bed.  The loss of his old
earning capacity was already covered by nezek.


> I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the
> utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved
> ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.)

Eved kenaani, and therefore "owner" is accurate.   An indenture holder or
employer doesn't enjoy the full value of the person, and therefore the
price he pays doesn't reflect it.


> The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured
> in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to
> 1 month employments?

Again, this is why it has to be eved kenaani.  We're concerned with the
loss of value *to the victim*, who has no intention of selling himself!


> It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch
> right after yovel.  And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are
> headed in the direction of our answer.

Even if your premise were correct, it wouldn't help answer this question,
because in the absence of a functioning slave market there's no basis for
a hypothetical valuation.  Given a functioning market for avadim ivriyim
an expert could predict what someone's value will be next year.  But with
no market there can't be any experts.  They have nothing to base their
expertise on.  They'd be like xenobiologists, and under the standards used
by the secular courts today they would not be allowed to testify.




-- 
Zev Sero               Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire
zev at sero.name          meaning merely by appending them to the two other
                        words `God can'.  Nonsense remains nonsense, even
                        when we talk it about God.   -- C S Lewis