As the actual... The evaluation of damage has to be in terms of money. What we're basically saying here is that we can't just say that there—let's say there was reciprocal damage, two people damaged each other—and say, “You know what? They both damaged each other; let's call it even, and everyone will just walk away from the situation.” Rather, we have to evaluate every single instance equally. Let's say Reuven hurt Shimon and caused him 100 zuz (coin) worth of damage, and then Shimon hurt Reuven and caused him 50 zuz worth of damage. You don't just say, “All right, you both hurt each other, you both damaged each other; let's call it even.” Rather, since Reuven damaged Shimon by 100, and Shimon damaged Reuven by only 50, Reuven is still obligated to pay Shimon 50 zuz. It always has to be exact, to the penny: whoever owes the larger amount has to pay the difference.
Ve-shaveh kesef (worth money). If a person, a damager—the mazik—dies and leaves property to his estate, the estate has to now pay the victim. But they pay him not with metaltelin, movable objects, which are like money, but they pay, which is kesef (money), but they pay him with something which is shaveh kesef, worth money, which is land, as opposed to the mazik. When the mazik is alive and causes damage, he could pay with whatever he wants. He could pay with kesef, metaltelin, movable objects, or karka, with land. Here, when it's the yorshin, when it's the inheritors who are paying out, they can only pay with land.
Bifnei Bet Din (before a Jewish court). All of these decisions—how much damage was caused and the payment from the damager to the victim—have to be made with a court of dayanim, expert judges, in a Bet Din (Jewish court). This is not the case every time, because in many cases you could have regular judges deal with monetary cases. They don't have to be high-level rabbis who have semikha (ordination). It could even be regular judges. But whenever you have a case that's totally out of the norm, or where there's a knas, there's a penalty going on, where it's not the same, then you have to have expert dayanim come in from a Bet Din to deal with the situation.
Ve-al pi edim (witnesses), bnei chorin, bnei brit (members of the covenant). Everything has to be done based on the testimony of edim, who are bnei chorin, who are free men, who are people, who are Jewish, people who are ba'alei brit, people who are members of Am Yisrael. Ve-hanashim bichlal hanezek. Women are included in the laws of damages. They could cause damage, and they could also become the victims of damage. The halachot (laws) are the same for men and for women.
Ve-hanizak ve-hamazik be-tashlumin. There are instances where the victim and the damager share in the payment. There's a situation where the victim will also pay. What we're basically saying here is that the damager only pays for the damage he causes right away. For example, if there was an animal that the victim had that was worth 100 zuz, and the damager killed that animal, the carcass was now worth only 10 zuz. So, the loss that the damager created was a loss of 90 zuz. The victim could salvage it and sell off the carcass for 10 zuz. But let's say, while the deliberations were happening, the carcass went down in value to only 5 zuz. In that situation, the mazik still only has to pay 90 zuz, and the nizak, the victim, loses 5 zuz because he can only sell the carcass for 5 zuz. It's different from the original total of 100 that he had originally. He loses that 5 zuz through the devaluation of the carcass. So that's what we're saying over here: sometimes the nizak, the victim, is also paying at the same time because he's not being compensated for his entire loss.