daf bit: Bava Metzia 110
Aug. 13th, 2009 08:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioThe talmud is discussing the payment of workers' wages; the employer is
responsible for paying the day laborers he hires that night (not holding
their wages until morning). The g'mara raises the case of agency: if an
employer tells his neighbor "go and hire me laborers" and they are not
paid on time, who has transgressed? The answer appears to be that neither
transgresses the commandment for prompt payment -- the employer did not
himself hire them and the neighbor did not benefit from the labor.
However, the neighbor is nonetheless responsible for the wages unless
he said "the employer is responsible for your wages". Yehudah b. Meremar
used to instruct his attendant to say this explicitly (so there would be
no risk to his attendant). (110b-111a)
It seems to me that the case here must be one of uncompensated agency. If the neighbor gets a fee like the modern contract house or headhunter, I would expect that to be different because he is benefiting. That's not covered here, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-13 07:23 pm (UTC)No, not in Massachusetts I'm not. As I understand it, which of course may be imperfectly, if you have failed to pay after 30 days, the state assumes you're not going to and proceeds accordingly.
(I have a fun illustrative story from my days temping. Agency screwed up my pay check in an entirely predictable way. I complained that I'd been stiffed. The next pay check made up for the amount they shorted me -- and a bit more. So I let them know they'd over-paid me when I was next in the office, and they were like "NO THAT'S OK, YOU KEEP IT, WE'RE ALL GOOD", and very nervous and urgent about it. And I thought that was odd, until I found out what they probably thought might happen to them if we were still arguing over whether or not who owed whom by 30 days after that timecard. At that point, we were three weeks out.)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 12:56 am (UTC)