[Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 26/08/16 02:32, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote:
>
> Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who
> has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be
> lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money.
>
> But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation
> from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets
> say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still
> coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have
> value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother
> working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working?

You misunderstand.  Your proposal hinges on the existence of a market in
people's entire future earnings; that there exist investors who routinely
pay a person a lump sum in return for every penny he will ever make again.
Thus, you suggest, we can consult experts in that market and find out what
sort of lump sum this person could have got before  his injury for such a
deal, and how much he could get now for the same deal, and the mazik will
pay him the difference.  But no such market exists or can exist, because
once a person has sold all his future earnings, he has no reason ever to
earn anything again.


> Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure.

Yes, it is.  The mazik has taken that from the nizak, and must make him
whole.   Why should the nizak bear any of the loss?


> It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim.

Which includes all of that.


> What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than
> what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors
> such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of
> him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list
> goes on.

But he was *not* a slave, and therefore was not subject to the same risks.
He would have earned far more than a slave identical to him would have
earned, and now he has lost it.   He has also lost pleasure and satisfaction
that are not reflected in a slave's price, because an owner doesn't benefit
from his slaves' pleasure or satisfaction, so he's not willing to pay for
them.  The current methods we have, which do at least attempt to measure
these factors, are therefore superior.


> I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The
> agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in
> short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim.

But this is not so.  If a beis din is called on to set a limit on the
amount one must pay for piyus, they must set it at the same amount as
what a BD would have awarded back then.   That's the whole reason we're
having this discussion in the first place, because that's the only role
a BD of non-musmachim *can* play in dinei chavalos.  I am skeptical that
anyone ever actually calls a BD for this purpose, but if they are called
that is how they must rule. And yet nowadays that is clearly not going
to mollify the nizak, or make him whole, and the BD is going to be hard
pressed to refuse him a heter arkaos, even if he actually needs one,
which I doubt.

-- 
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