Study Bava Kamma folio 5A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
עדים זוממין, דממונא הוא, ליתני! סבר לה כרבי עקיבא, דאמר: אין משלמין על פי עצמן.
The Talmud asks: With regard to the payment made by conspiring witnesses, which is categorized as monetary restitution, as the witnesses pay the precise sum that they conspired to cause the defendant to lose, let R' Oshaya also teach it as one of the categories on his list. The Talmud answers: R' Oshaya holds in accordance with the opinion of R' Akiva, who says that conspiring witnesses do not pay on the basis of their own admission. Evidently, theirs is not a payment of monetary restitution; rather, it is a fine, as only one who was found liable based on the testimony of witnesses pays a fine, not one who was found liable based on his own admission.
The Talmud asks: If R' Oshaya holds in accordance with the opinion of R' Akiva, let him teach two distinct types of categories of damage under the rubric of Ox: Let him teach one category for an ox that damages an ox or other property belonging to another person, and let him also teach the case of an ox that injures a person.
דתנן, רבי עקיבא אומר: אף תם שחבל באדם – משלם במותר נזק שלם!
The Talmud explains its question: As we learned in a Mishnah (33a): In a case where the two parties damaged each other concurrently, R' Akiva says: The owner of the innocuous ox that injured a person also pays the full cost of the damage with regard to the difference between the damage caused by his ox and the damage that the person caused the ox. R' Akiva holds that if an innocuous ox injures a person, the owner pays the full cost of the damage, whereas if an innocuous ox damages another’s property then the owner is liable only for half the cost of the damage. Since the owner’s liability in the two cases is different, each case should be classified as a distinct category, and R' Oshaya should list them separately in his baraita.