Here’s another ethical issue and Jewish source response:

Case

Fred had hundreds and hundreds of shot glasses. Everytime he went on a trip he bought a shot glass.  Soon his house was filled with them. After a while he put them in boxes. Then he moved to a smaller apartment with no storage space.  Fred didn’t know what to do with the glasses. He decided to leave them in his friend Barney’s garage until he figured out what to do with them.  He knocked on Barney’s door. There was no answer. Fred put them on a shelf in Barney’s unlocked garage anyway. A week later, fifteen-and-a -half-year-old Elroy, working on his learner’s permit, drives the car too far into the garage, hits the shelf and knocks the boxes onto the floor and onto the car.  Fred wants Barney to pay to replace the broken glasses. Barney wants Fred to pay to repair the flat tire the broken glass caused.

Answer

Fred leaves his “junk” in Barney’s garage without telling anyone.  Elroy, Fred’s son, destroys them by accident. Who is responsible?

This case is straight out of the Mishnah.  In Bava Metzia 5.2 we find:

“If a potter leaves his pots in the courtyard of another and the owner’s cattle breaks them,

[a] If s/he had no permission to leave them, then (1) the owner of cattle has no obligation to pay for them, and (2) the potter must pay if the pots injured the cattle.

[b] If s/he had permission to leave them, then (1) the owner of the cattle must pay for them, and (2) the potter has no obligation to pay if the cattle are injured.

Based directly on this mishnah, Fred must pay for the tire and is not repaid for the glasses.

Joel Grishaver, “You Be the Judge”, pgs. 17-18

Used with permission from Joel Grishaver