We have received several questions on similar topics. The following are two examples:
Q1. One of the partners in a business invested a great deal of time into creating a website for the business. The website was wildly successful, and the business flourished from online sales. Is that partner entitled to payment for the time he invested into developing the website?
Q2. Two people opened a store together, under an agreement that each would work in the store from nine to five daily. Recently, one of the partners began to show up late, and the other had to work harder to open the store and deal with the customers until the other partner arrived. Is the punctual partner entitled to payment for his extra work?
A. If people own a field together, and one partner decides, on his own, to cultivate the field, the halachah is that he is entitled to payment like a sharecropper who received permission from a field owner to cultivate his field, which means that he is paid for both his outlay and a portion of the produce, as is customary to pay for a sharecropper, not like a worker who is paid only for his labor (Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 178:3; See ibid. 187:1 regarding brothers working in a shared estate).
This is true even if he planted trees in a field that was supposed to be used to grow wheat, because as a stakeholder, he is entitled to make decisions on how to use the field.
Some poskim cite this as proof that a partner is entitled to payment for anything he does to advance the business, even if it is easy work, and we do not assume that he did that work voluntarily (see She’eilas Yaavetz 1:6, Minchas Pittim 177 and Miluei Mishpat 177, note 80).
Other poskim differentiate between two types of work, which we can illustrate through the two cases we cited above.
In the first case, developing a website was not one of the obligations each partner had vis-à-vis the business. Therefore, the partner who developed it is entitled to payment for his work. The other partner cannot claim that he should have informed him in advance that he wanted to be compensated, and had he done so, he, too, would have invested time into the website. Since neither one was obligated to develop a website, the partner who did so had no reason to inform his partner, because informing him would not have obligated him to join him in developing the website.
In the second case, however, since the latecomer was obligated to be there on time, he is entitled to claim that had the punctual partner told him that he would want to be paid for working harder during the opening hours, he would have begun to show up on time in order to avoid paying him.
If it was impossible for the latecomer partner to fulfill his obligations toward the partnership — for example, if he were ill or moved to a different city and couldn’t get there on time — then the punctual partner is entitled to payment even if he didn’t inform his partner that he wanted to be paid.
But if it were possible for the latecomer to be there on time, and he was showing up late without a valid reason, then the punctual partner was required to inform him that he would begin to charge him for the extra work he is doing. If he didn’t, we assume that he was mochel (waived) payment for that work (Nesivos 177:4 and 287:2; Erech Shai 177, and Shu”t Maharsham 4:95).
It is therefore better to express clearly that he is expecting compensation, so as to avoid any uncertainty due to that dispute among the poskim.
Some poskim say that it is enough to request that the latecomer start coming on time because the work is much harder when he isn’t there (Pis’chei Teshuvah, Sechirus 8, note 73), and if his request is ignored, then he is entitled to payment. Certainly, he warrants compensation if he specified that this is his intention (see She’eilas Yaavetz 1:6).
As we have written previously in several essays, if there are accepted business practices that govern partnerships in a locale, then those practices are binding in halachah (see She’eilas Yaavetz, ibid., cited in Chiddushei Chasam Sofer 176:41, which deliberates whether there are scenarios in which it is obvious from the onset of the partnership that there would be no compensation for this type of extra work).
