Shabbat Parashat Tazria Metzora 5785

P'ninat Mishpat: Rental of an Apartment that Was Not Quite Ready – part II

Case: The plaintiffs (=pl) rented out an apartment in a yishuv to the defendants (=def) just as its building was being completed. Def entered it in Aug. 2021, before there was a tofes 4 (certificate of occupancy); the permanent electric system was not hooked up, and there were no air conditioners. The contract states that the price is 5,000 NIS a month. Orally, def agreed to install air conditioners, for which they would be compensated. The circumstances of the apartment’s state at the beginning of the rental spawned various disputes. [We will deal with them in installments.] Pl claim that the rental fee is 6,250 NIS per month and that 5,000 NIS was written to reflect pl’s reimbursement for def’s spending 11,900 NIS on air conditioners, so that def now owe 3,000 NIS for the first year. Def claim that the rental price was indeed 5,000 NIS, and since nothing was deducted to compensate for the air conditioners they bought, pl must reimburse for them. Def counterclaim against pl for launching into a verbal tirade in front of def’s children, as embarrassment and lashon hara.

Ruling: Rental rate: When questions arise about how to understand a contract, the one who needs the document to extract money has to prove his contention (Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 42:5). That is said in the case of doubt, all the more so here where the contract is clear that it is 5,000 NIS, and def is claiming there is an oral stipulation which essentially contradicts that which is written. That requires a strong indication to be believed (Nachal Yitzchak, CM 61:16). Furthermore, the amounts given would not even work out exactly if they were to correspond to the expenditure of the air conditioners.

Reimbursement for the air conditioners: Since we have determined that the rental rate was unrelated to reimbursement for the air conditioners, there is no argument that there was supposed to be reimbursement, and that no other form was used, pl must pay def 11,900 NIS.

Lashon hara: According to the basic Halacha, embarrassment from words is not payable, but beit din has authority to obligate exceptional payment when they see fit (Shulchan Aruch, CM 420:38). In this case, the majority of dayanim did not consider it appropriate to obligate payment for a few related reasons: Pl did not premeditate to insult or discredit def, but pl reacted (albeit, poorly) to a tense situation of mutual recriminations. The Shulchan Aruch and Rama (ibid. 39) say that intention is significant in these matters. Also, there are indications that def may have pushed pl, in which case we can apply the Rama’s (CM 421:13) ruling: “One who hits his counterpart, and the counterpart called him a mamzer, he is exempt …” The majority did not want to apply the Israeli “Law of Lashon Hara” because while negative things were said to others (in this case, def’s children), the things that were said were not intended for that “audience,” who just happened to be there.

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