Masechet Bava Metzia, Perek Vav (Chapter Six), Mishnah Aleph (Mishnah One). This perek is going to talk about hiring workers and animals. The Mishnah says somebody hired craftsmen to work for him, and one of those craftsmen deceived the others about the job. For example, let's say there was an employer who was planning to hire a whole crew of craftsmen. He appointed one of them as the agent to hire the others, and that agent deceived everyone else. He told them that the job was for three dinarim (dinars) a day, but in reality, the person who was really hiring was willing to pay four dinarim for every single day. There's nothing they can do. There's nothing they can do besides have a complaint against the agent. They agreed to do the job for lower pay, so there's nothing legal they could do to the agent to get back that extra dinar they lost out on. They could simply have a complaint. They could have grievances with him, but there's nothing they can do to get them the higher wage they missed out on.
The next part of the Mishnah is going to talk about an agreement between people, between Ba'al Habayit, the owner, and other people who were supposed to do a job for him, and then backed out of their commitment. If somebody hired a donkey driver or a wagon driver to deliver pieces of wood to make a bridal chair, the way they did it in those days was to bring a special chair to the house of the kallah (bride) and carry her all the way to the wedding. Or the drivers here were hired to deliver flutes to play music for the wedding or sad music for a funeral. Or workers were hired to process flax for him. They used to make linen, or they still do. They make linen from a flax plant. What they would do is soak the flax, and then, once it was soaked for a certain amount of time, they would remove it. Fibers would come from it, and then they would turn those fibers into threads. If the flax stayed in the water too long, it would rot, and the employer here would lose out on the flax. The same is true of any other type of thing that could be lost if it isn't done within a certain amount of time.
In all the cases we mentioned, if the items aren't delivered to the wedding or the funeral, it's over. Once the wedding or the funeral happens, there's no need for the supplies anymore. The same thing applies to the flax. What happens? These workers or drivers change their minds, and they don't want to do the job anymore, in all of these cases. This is a situation where the boss, the employer, can't find anybody else to do the job. He needs it done right away, and these people are the only people he had an agreement with, but they're backing out. So what we say is that he's allowed to hire new workers for a higher amount and charge the difference to the original workers who backed out. Let's say the original workers agreed to transport the materials for four dinarim, and then they backed out. He doesn't have enough time to find somebody competitive, somebody who will do it for that same price of four dinarim. He finds somebody only for eight dinarim. In that case, he could hire that person for eight dinarim and pay them four only, which is what he was paying the original people who were working for him. Then he could charge the remaining four to the workers who backed out. He's allowed to do that. He's only allowed to charge up to double what they were supposed to do it for, but not more than that.
O met'an. Or he's allowed to trick the original workers into doing the job. He could tell them, “You know what? I agree to pay you four. We had a signed agreement and everything. I'll give you a few more. I'll give you six dinarim if you do the job, because I have to get it done.” He feels the pressure. At the end of the day, he would only have to pay them the original amount that was agreed upon. He doesn't have to pay them more than that. This is only in a situation, again, where he can't find anybody else at a competitive price. In addition to that, he needs the job done immediately. So he could use any of these methods to make sure the job gets done in the time he needs.