Shabbat Parashat Shemot 5784

P'ninat Mishpat: Various Issues Regarding a Printing Press – part II

Case: The defendant (=def) made an arrangement to use the plaintiff’s (=pl) printing operation, renting most of the space and machines. Def was responsible for expenses, including municipal tax and va’ad bayit (upkeep along with the building’s other businesses). Pl used his section for his printing press related work. In 2013, pl sold def a used printing press for 80,000 NIS. Recently, def left the premises and sold his business. Pl has different claims against def, [which we will present in installments]. 1. Pl demands 10,000 NIS for fixing def’s printing press. Def responds that when he bought the press, pl promised to fix it when necessary, and that it was damaged during transport, when it was pl’s responsibility. 2. Def left two months before the end of the final year of renting, for which pl demands rent and payments to third parties (see part I). Def says he received permission from pl to leave early. 3. Pl complains that def took all the lighting fixtures when he left and left the place without lights. Def says that he installed stronger lighting, needed when a gallery was built, and that is what he took. 

Ruling: 1. From pl’s comments during the hearing, it is clear that at the time he did the repairs, he had no plans of charging def, commenting that pl and def were so close that just as one would not charge his son, pl would not charge def. When one does a service for another with the intention of it being for free, it is like giving a present, and one cannot charge later (Netivot Hamishpat 12:5). His claim that he changed his mind now that they had a fight is exactly what we are concerned about when someone makes a late claim for payment (Terumat Hadeshen 317). Therefore, there is no payment even if pl did not promise and even if the damage was not his responsibility.

2. When one has an open-ended rental agreement, either side can end it with 30-days’ notice (Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 312:7). However, in this case, throughout the seventeen years of rental, all the written contracts and oral agreements covered a year. If def had claimed that this past agreement was for shorter or left open, there would be what to investigate. However, def’s excuse was that he received permission to leave when he did, not that there was never an understanding of a year’s rental (which he did not prove). Therefore, def is bound to fulfill the oral or assumed rental agreement until the time it ceased, naturally or by agreement (ibid. 1). This applies both to the rent and the other expenses.

3. A renter who supplies appliances for the rental apartment is permitted to remove them before leaving. There seems to be agreement that various fluorescent lights that were in the property when def entered, broke during the seventeen years of occupancy. Since the contract states that pl cannot charge def for that which broke during normal usage, def does not have to pay for the no-longer-present fluorescent lights.  

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