Q. After the Holocaust, a woman was about to emigrate to Eretz Yisrael. Hoping to land a good job, she asked one the great Gedolim at the time, the Imrei Chaim of Vizhnitz, zy”a, who was living at the time in Grosswardein, Romania, to write her a letter of recommendation that she could show to potential employers. At one of the places she applied for work, the owner took the letter and told her to return the next day. When she returned, not only did he inform her that she would not be hired for the job, but he refused to return the letter. At some point, he sold the letter to an antique collector for a tidy sum. Many years later, he regretted what he had done and decided to compensate the woman for the letter.
How much is he required to pay to rectify his wrongdoing? Is it enough to pay the price the letter was worth when he stole it? Or should he pay the amount that he received for it when he sold it, which was not much more than when he stole it? Or must he pay the amount that it is worth today, which is exponentially more?
A. If someone steals an object and it is still intact and in his possession (be’ein), he must return it, even if the owner was meya’eish (despaired) of getting it back (Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 353:2 & 354:2), because yei’ush alone does not transfer ownership of a stolen object to the thief.
Therefore, had the letter still been in the possession of the thief (or his heirs, as we will explain later), he would be obligated to return it to the woman (or her heirs). Because it is not in his possession, he is obligated to pay its value at the time that he sold it, not the value when he stole it or its value today.
Now, generally, a thief must pay according to the value of the object at the time of the theft. For instance, if someone stole a barrel of wine worth $100, and its value increased to $200, but then the barrel broke (without his intervention), he is obligated to pay only $100. If he broke it, however, he must pay for its value at the time he broke it (ibid. 354:3 & 362:10), because as long as the barrel was intact, it was considered to be in the owner’s possession. The additional value is therefore considered to belong to the original owner, and when the thief broke the barrel, he is considered to have caused damage for the current value of $200 (Ketzos Hachoshen 34:3; Nesivos ibid. 5).
Similarly, if the thief sold the stolen object, it is considered as though the thief destroyed the object and removed it from the owner’s possession (see Otzar Meforshei HaTalmud, Bava Kamma 3, p. 237) at the time of the sale. He must therefore reimburse the woman for the amount he received for it at that time.
Q. Is the collector who bought the letter obligated to return it to the woman?
A. If a thief sold a stolen object after the owner was meya’eish, the buyer is not obligated to return it to the original owner, because he acquired it legally through a combination of yei’ush and shinui reshus (change of possession; Choshen Mishpat 353:3). [As we wrote above, the thief’s heirs would be required to return it if it was in their possession, because inheritance is not considered shinui reshus (ibid. 4).]
Based on the above, according to basic halachah, the antiques collector would not be obligated to return the letter. Nowadays, however, dina d’malchusa dina (the law of the land is binding in halachah) mandates that the buyer return the stolen object to the owner (Rema, Choshen Mishpat 356:7; see also, Ketzos 5, who writes that there is, therefore, at minimum, an obligation to return a stolen object latzeis yedei Shamayim — to avert Heavenly judgment).
Chazal established, however, that the buyer is not obligated to return the object unless the victim reimburses him for his purchase price. The reasoning behind this rule is takanas hashuk (proper running of the marketplace), because if anyone were able to show up at any point and claim that an object someone bought was stolen, no one would ever want to buy anything, lest it be seized and they would lose their money (ibid. 2).
Therefore, if the woman is willing to reimburse the collector for his purchase price — which is the amount she should receive from the thief when he decides to rectify his actions — he must return the letter to the woman, at least latzeis yedei Shamayim.
