Somebody who watches over produce but doesn't actually work with it—what happens with his ability and privilege to eat from the produce? Mishnah says that people who watch over produce that has already been detached from the ground are allowed to eat from it according to the local custom. If the custom of the place was that they were allowed to eat from the produce, then they could follow that custom. But according to the Torah, according to the letter of the law, they have no right to eat the produce. The only people who have the right to produce are the people who work with it, not the people who watch over it. There are customs that allow these types of people who watch over produce to eat it, but we're only talking about people who watch over produce that's already been detached, because people who work with produce that's already been detached, or who are detaching produce, are allowed to eat from it on the Torah level. But people who work in the field with attached produce before the harvesting are not permitted to eat the produce according to the Torah. Therefore, Shomrim, people who are watching the fields that are Mechubar—the produce is still attached to the ground—there's no custom, nothing that would allow them to eat the produce. Those are the types of Shomrim.
Now that we mentioned Shomrim, we mentioned the four types of guards or watchers. We'll elaborate on each of them. Arba'ah Shomrim: There are four types of Shomrim, four different categories: Shomer Chinam and unpaid Shomer; veha-sho'el, a borrower; Noseh Sachar, a paid man; veha-socher, a renter. Those are all four different types of Shomrim.
Now we'll mention details about all of them. Every one of the Shomrim that we mentioned would have to pay for damage that happens to an item they're watching if they were negligent in their watch. Number two, there are types of damage that happen not because of the neglect of the Shomer (somebody who watches over produce), but if the Shomer was extra careful, he could have prevented that type of damage from happening. Number three, there's a complete accident that the Shomer couldn't do anything about; nothing could have been done that would have prevented this type of damage. What is the relationship of each type of Shomer to these types of damage that we mentioned above?
Shomer Chinam nishba al hakol. An unpaid Shomer has to swear that the item he was watching was lost in all of the cases stated in the Shomer, whether it was an avoidable loss or an unavoidable loss. The only way he could exempt himself from payment is if he swears that he wasn't negligent. He would only be obligated if he was negligent. That's the only time he would be obligated, if he didn't pay enough attention to it. But if he wasn't negligent, or if he could have provided a little extra care, he wouldn't be obligated; obviously, in a complete accident, he wouldn't be obligated either.
The borrower borrows somebody else's product. He has to pay for all types of loss, even a loss that happened in an unavoidable accident. It wasn't his fault whatsoever; he is still responsible.
Lastly, we'll talk about the Noseh Sachar and the Socher. The Noseh Sachar, a paid Shomer, and a renter: Nishba'in al ha-shevurah, al ha-shevuya, ve'al ha-metah (swear about broken, captured, and dead). They have the switch, or if they don't want to have to pay, that an animal that they were watching broke a limb or was captured or it suffered a normal natural death, where the Torah gives us here all different types of unavoidable accidents. If it was an unavoidable accident that wasn't their fault, then they wouldn't have to pay; they would be exempt from that payment. But in a situation where the damage could have been avoided if they had just paid a little bit more attention and been a little bit more on top of it, they would have to pay, like an Aveidah or a Geneivah, like the case of a lost item or the case of theft. They would be obligated to pay.