Shabbat Parashat Behar Bechukotai 5785

P'ninat Mishpat: Can the Tenant Take Off for Theft?

Case: The defendant (=def) rented a rental unit (=ru) in the landlord’s (=pl) building for fourteen years. Def has left the apartment without paying around 6,000 NIS owed for electricity, water, and municipal tax. Def refuses to pay because pl’s cleaner (=clw), who he claims has no permit to be in Israel (pl believes he is an Israeli citizen) stole 12,000 NIS of cash from him. Def was robbed when pl was away, several hours after def saw clw staying around the building for longer than reasonable. Security cameras (studied after the fact) show clw apparently suspiciously looking into ru around the time of a poker game. The cameras indicate another (unidentifiable) man sneaking into ru the next night. Pl admits it is likely that clw gave information to someone else who was able to find the money without turning the house upside down. However, he believes that he vetted clw reasonably, kept in touch with clw while he was cleaning, and helped def confront clw. He claims that def was more at fault for keeping a lot of money unprotected after a poker game, for not informing him about clw’s unusual behavior, and for not going to the police.

Ruling: While rarely does Halacha hold an employer responsible for damage done by a worker, it is common practice nowadays that the employer takes responsibility. However, that practice does not extend to cases where the damage is totally unrelated to the work (here, clw is suspected of passing on information, not during the time he was working).

Pl cannot be held culpable for creating a dangerous situation vis a vis theft (see opinions in Rama, Choshen Mishpat 388:2), because that would require def to warn him about the situation, which he did not. Bringing in a dangerous worker could not create an obligation based on garmi in a case where the danger is unclear and certainly unintentional. (Consider that it was more likely for clw to steal from pl).

Can def make pl compensate because ru turned out to be an unsafe place to live? He cannot. For one, while this could be grounds to make pl improve security or possibly lower the rent, it would not require pl to forgo thousands of NIS, which could only be stolen because def decided to leave an unusual amount of cash unprotected in ru. More fundamentally, def decided to renew contracts at ru for fourteen years after knowing that there were often cleaners with the same profile as clw (often, his brother), and he did not even complain. Therefore, def cannot claim that conditions were not to standards he could accept.

Therefore, beit din will not obligate pl to reduce the money def owes him. However, beit din suggests to pl, who expressed the desire to be totally vindicated for his behavior, to voluntary relieve def of up to 1,000 NIS, for the following reason. Many Israelis believe that workers with clw’s profile, not infrequently steal sums of money (12,000 NIS is rare). Still, they employ them because enough money is saved by their low price to put up with occasional theft. In this case, then, it seems unfair that pl saved money on cheap labor, whereas loss due to theft went to def instead of pl.

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