Q. Two impoverished families were struggling to cover the costs of their children’s wedding, cutting whatever corners they could. They spent quite some time making phone calls to find the least expensive whiskey to serve at the wedding, but an hour before the chasunah, the store from which they ordered sent extremely expensive whiskey to the hall where the wedding was being held. Neither family understood why they had received that whiskey, and they figured that some kindhearted Jews must have paid for it to be sent, so they served it to their guests.
It turned out that the whiskey was delivered to the wrong address; it had been intended for a different event in a nearby Beis Medrash.
Who must pay for the expensive whiskey?
A. The most obvious culprit in this case is the delivery person, and if it is possible for the storeowner to get him to pay for the whiskey, that would be ideal.
If that is impossible, for some reason, we must consider whether anyone else is liable.
The halachah is that if a person died after renting a cow, and his children, mistakenly assuming the cow was his, slaughtered it and ate the meat, it is not considered hezek (damage) that they are required to pay for because it is an absolute oness (circumstance beyond their control). But they must pay for the benefit they derived from the meat, which Chazal estimated at two-thirds of its market price, because that is the type of discount that would entice a person to buy meat even if he had no plan to do so (Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 341:4 with Sma 10).
If, however, someone stole food and someone else ate it, the owner of the food may demand payment from either the thief or the person who ate it, who is also considered a thief (ibid. 361:5).
Why is this case different from the case of the slaughtered cow?
The Rishonim and poskim offer two approaches. Some explain that in the latter case, the eater is obligated to pay only if he knew that the food was stolen, or he intended to steal it from the original thief, which means that his eating was not an oness. In the former case, the orphans’ claim that had they known that the cow did not belong to their father, they would not have eaten it is reasonable (Ramban, Rashba, Ritva on Kesubos 34b; see Chavos Daas 177:27 and Erech Shai, Choshen Mishpat 361).
Other poskim explain that in the latter case, even had the eater not known that the food was stolen, but he did intend to transfer it from someone else’s possession to his own, he is obligated to pay (see, however, Ketzos and Nesivos, beginning of Choshen Mishpat 25). But if there was no attempt to acquire it for himself, as was the case with the orphans who ate the cow they thought they inherited from their father, they are not obligated to pay (Machaneh Ephraim, Gezeilah 7; Shaar Mishpat 72:31; Zichron Shmuel 56:7).
Applying these principles to our case, according to the approach of the first set of poskim, those who drank the whiskey obviously are not obligated to pay full price of the whiskey, only for the amount of pleasure they derived from it. But even according to the second approach, since they merely intended to drink the whiskey as guests at the wedding — not to acquire it (see Even Ha’ezer 28:17 and Sfas Emes, Sukkah 35a) — they are required to pay only for the pleasure they derived from it. In reality, this would be only a minimal amount per guest, and it would be extremely difficult to collect.
If the mechutanim were pouring drinks for their guests, however — or even if they placed it on the tables for the guests — then the halachah would depend on the two approaches above. According to the first approach, since they didn’t know that the whiskey wasn’t intended for their simchah, the situation is one of oness and they are not obligated to pay. But according to the second approach, since they did intend to acquire the whiskey, they are obligated to pay according to the halachah that applies to a thief. The mechutanim can ultimately rely on the poskim who say that they are not obligated to pay full price for the whiskey, but they will still have to pay for the pleasure they derived from having expensive whiskey at their simchah. (Even if the guests took the whiskey themselves, it is possible that the mechutanim are still obligated to pay for the benefit they derived, depending on a dispute between Acharonim on how to explain a Tosafos [Bava Kamma 101a, s.v. O Dilma; see Shu”t R’ Eliezer Gordon, v. 2, Bava Basra 4b and Ohr Samei’ach, Hilchos Nizkei Mammon 3:2]).
The people who actually ordered the expensive whiskey for the other event are certainly not required to pay because they didn’t receive what they ordered. So if the storeowner cannot collect from the person, he will have to absorb the loss.
