Tuesday 7 August 2018

Mekach Ta'us


Introduction

Every legal system needs to define when the terms of a sale, employment contract or other transaction have been breached to the extent that the entire agreement is null and void. However, in Torah law there is an important distinction which to the best of my knowledge does not exist in common law. Apart from the right to terminate a contract that has been breached, it is often crucial to know whether the transaction was invalid from the outset. This is known as a mekach ta'us (mistaken sale).

For example, if a married couple discovered that the wife's wedding ring was worth much less than what they paid for it, they may have a right to return it to the seller and get a full refund.[1] If this is the case, it is likely that they will have a more serious problem. If the purchase of the ring was invalid, the result is that the man did not own it at the time that he used it for kiddushin. This invalidates the entire kiddushin, and they must go through this part of the marriage process again.

An important point to make here is that the above is true even if no-one is at fault. The couple may have lived together for years without noticing, and even the seller may not have known that the price was unfair (the value of gold may have dropped suddenly, or he might have mixed up two different rings).

A sale can be invalidated even because of unknown information unrelated to the thing being sold. The gemara tells us that if a person sold his property because of a desperate needs to raise funds during a famine, not realising that in fact that a huge shipment of wheat had arrived and prices would return to normal, he has the right to retract. In a place where famine is common, this right is abrogated out of concern that no-one will want to buy if the seller could easily retract.[2]

Unforeseen circumstances

What happens if all the information available at the time of purchase was known by both sides, but knowledge of events to come would definitely have stopped one side from going ahead? Obviously things like everyday changes in the stock market cannot justify annulment of trades, just like famine in a place where it is common. But what happens in freak circumstances?

The same gemara above concludes that even if the poor seller had no need for the money due to later events, the sale is null and void. However, Tosfos explain that this is only when the seller indicated at the time of sale that he was only selling in order to raise funds for something (which later became unnecessary). Such an indication is understood as a stipulation that the sale will only be valid if the money is needed.[3] The Rambam also explains that the case is when the seller stated explicitly that he is selling in order to raise funds for something specific. This statement is understood as a condition to the sale.[4] The Shulchan Aruch writes the same thing.[5]

From all this it seems clear that whenever a sale or other transaction is made without condition (explicit or implicit), it is not dependent on future events. This is presumably what most of us would have expected, as all agreements are made with the understanding that we can never know what exactly the future holds for us.

The case of theft with no-one to return to

In this light, we are faced with a difficulty when explaining a gemara elsewhere. To explain this we first need to explain a halacha which is unrelated at first glance. One who steals must return the stolen item (or if it is no longer extant, its value) to its rightful owner. If the owner has already passed on, the thief must return it to the inheritors of the person he stole from.

As every Jew has living family members if you look hard enough, there is only one possibility of someone with no inheritors- a convert who died without leaving children. One who stole from such a person would not ordinarily have to pay anyone, in the same way that an only son who stole from his father would not have to pay if his father died.

However, if the thief also denied his actions and swore falsely to that effect, he must always pay someone the amount that he stole plus 20%, as well as bringing a sacrifice to atone.[6] Even if he himself is the inheritor, he must give what he stole to the next in line to inherit.[7] If he stole from a convert who subsequently died and there is no inheritor, he gives the stolen property to the kohanim of the watch serving at the time.[8]

This obligation only applies to the one who stole himself. If the thief dies, his inheritors do not have to pay the kohanim. However, if the thief already paid, even if he died before bringing the sacrifice, his inheritors cannot get the money back.[9] The gemara discusses the reason for this.

Abaye claims that the money paid by the thief must have achieved a partial atonement for the theft. If this was not the case, the inheritors would have a valid argument to have the money returned- their father certainly only paid in order to achieve atonement. If this atonement was in the end not achieved, the payment is null and void.

The gemara questions this logic. Is it really true that a payment could be retroactively invalid due to the subsequent death of the payer and its implications? Following a similar argument, if a husband dies (without children) and his brother is a leper, the wife should be absolved from performing chalitza.[10] When she got married she never intended to be 'tied' to a leper!

The gemara answers that in fact when a woman gets married, she would be prepared to do so even if she was aware of the possibility of being 'tied' to a leper. This is because in general, women are willing to make sacrifices in order to get married.[11] Rashi explains that since her husband was unblemished, she was willing to marry him despite the risk of him dying and her becoming dependent on his brother.

The implication of this conclusion is that theoretically, a transaction can be null and void due to unforeseen events if we can be sure that it would not have been agreed upon with hindsight. Technically, this is not the case with a thief paying back money or a woman getting married to the brother of a leper, but in other circumstances it might be. How does this fit with what we have seen previously?

Is marriage different?

Tosfos ask the flip side of this question. If a transaction can be invalidated by unforeseen circumstances, any item purchased could be returned if it gets ruined subsequently! They answer that a sale cannot be invalidated through such a mechanism, as every sale involves two parties and the seller did want the sale to be valid even under the circumstances. Although marriage also involves two parties, the husband "is not concerned about her intentions."[12]

Seemingly, Tosfos are saying that a husband is willing to accept whatever conditions a wife has for marriage (even if they are not stated or even thought about at the time of marriage). This is a major assertion, although elsewhere Tosfos clarify why it is true in the case in question. As the marriage is only uprooted in the event of the death of the husband (as only then the wife becomes tied to his brother), the husband doesn't have much to lose.[13][14]

We can conclude from here that a transaction involving two parties can be declared null and void based on unforeseen circumstances. The criterion for deciding when this is the case is what would have happened had the question been raised at the time of the transaction. If there is a fair assumption that both sides would have agreed that the deal would be off under these circumstances, this theoretical agreement is enough.

Even if agreement would not have been achieved, if one side would have backed out from the transaction, this would logically be enough to annul it. Usually this is not the case, as people are aware that the way of the world is to lose out due to unforeseen circumstances and this is unpreventable. However, if one side subsequently takes advantage of his position to harm the other, this could be grounds for voiding the agreement. One obvious example is the case of a husband who abandons his wife immediately after getting married.[15]

This is not the case with the person who sells his property during a famine. One who buys property would not agree to have to return it just because the seller did not need the money in the end. Nor would the seller have insisted on this stipulation, as he could not afford to forgo this means of raising funds. Thus if no condition was hinted to (or at least consciously intended) at the time of sale, no future event can annul it.

Conclusion

In any case many factors need to be taken into account to decide whether agreement would have been achieved, and it is impossible to cover all of the possible permutations of different cases. But the estimation that needs to be made is always of the same nature. Would the party who stands to lose have been prepared to take this risk, in return for the gain he would have made under different circumstances?



[1] The details can be complicated, and are set out in Choshen Mishpat siman 227. But the underlying principle is relatively simple: the transaction is invalid if most people would not have gone ahead with it had they known all the relevant information.
[2] Kesuvos 97a
[3] They quote another case, where a person sold his property and made it clear that he was planning to make aliya to Eretz Yisrael. The implication of the gemara in Kiddushin 49b-50a is that if this intention was stated at the time of sale, the sale is conditional on the move going ahead. They explain that although most conditions need to be clearly stated in order to take effect, sometimes a mere indication of a person's intentions makes is tantamount to an explicit condition. Elsewhere (Bechoros 51b ד"ה הלכך) they go further, implying that even an indication is not necessary. But even according to this view, the sale is only invalidated by the condition which we assume to be agreed upon by both sides.
[4] Hilchos Mechira 11:8
[5] Choshen Mishpat 207:3
[6] The extra 20% and the sacrifice apply to anyone who steals and swears falsely about it, see Vayikra 5:20-26 and Bava Kama 103b.
[7] Mishna Bava Kama 108b
[8] Ibid. 110a, based on Bamidbar 5:8. The kohanim were divided into twenty-four watches, who served bi-annually for a week at a time.
[9] Ibid.
[10] When a man dies without children, if he has a brother or brothers one of them must either marry his brother's widow (nowadays this option is discouraged) or perform chalitza (a ceremony where the widow removes her brother-in-law's shoe and spits, and both of them declare that he is not interested in marrying her. See Devarim 25:5-10.
[11] Bava Kama 110b-111a. Much has been written about whether or not this generalisation holds true nowadays, but this question is not relevant to our discussion.
[12] Ibid. (ד"ה דאדעתא)
[13] Although it may raise a retroactive question over the legitimacy of his marriage and relationship with his wife.
[14] Kesuvos 47b (ד"ה שלא).
[15] See this ruling which in this case arrives at the same conclusion, with slightly different reasoning (in other cases, these differences in reasoning lead to different results).

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