In the last Mishnah, we said that only a mumcheh, an expert, is allowed to give a halachic ruling on whether a blemish, a mum, in a bechor (firstborn animal) is permanent. If it is, the animal may be slaughtered. Here we'll talk about what happens if someone is not a mumcheh, not an expert, and gives a halachic ruling on the blemished bechor.
The Mishnah says that if someone who was not an expert looked at the blemished bechor, ruled that the blemish was permanent, and it was slaughtered according to his ruling, the bechor has to be buried. The non-expert's ruling is considered thrown out; it is invalid, and one may not benefit from the meat. The non-expert also has to pay the owner for the bechor from his own funds. He caused the owner a loss by wrongfully permitting the shechitah (slaughter).
The Gemara elaborates here and says that it's not the entire value of the animal, but only half the value of a large animal and a quarter of the value of a small animal, because it's not clear that he actually caused the owner a loss. Maybe it was actually a permanent blemish; maybe it wasn't. So therefore, he doesn't have to pay the entire amount.
Now we'll go back to a different type of scenario, where somebody gave an incorrect ruling in a monetary case or a halachic decision that caused somebody to lose money. If somebody judged a monetary case and exempted somebody who was actually obligated to pay, or obligated somebody who was actually exempt from paying, or ruled that something was tameh (impure) when it was actually tahor (pure), or ruled that something was tahor when it was actually tameh, what he did is already considered to be done. The verdict stands and can't be reversed. He has to pay the damaged party from his own money for the loss that he incorrectly caused.
If he was a mumcheh, he was exempt from payment. But if the judge was an expert who had already been approved by the Beit Din (court), he's not obligated to pay. So when we said previously that he's obligated to pay, it's only somebody whose judgment does not have a legal basis. So therefore, he would have to pay for the damage that he caused.
Once, there was a situation where a cow whose womb was removed was considered by Rabbi Tarfon to be a terefa (animal with a fatal defect) and had to be fed to the dogs. But afterwards, the case came before the rabbis, and they said the cow was permitted to be eaten. It wasn't a terefa. The loss of a womb does not make an animal a terefa, as they taught from a person named Tudos HaRofeh, Todos the doctor, who said, “Ein parah ve-chazirah yotz'ah me-Alexandria,” a cow, or female pig, was not allowed to leave Alexandria, Egypt, unless they cut the womb out so that it wouldn't give birth.
An animal with a womb was never sold from Alexandria. They had the top-quality animals, and they wanted to make sure that they controlled the trade. They would cut out the ability to give birth from every cow and every pig before exporting them so that no other country had the ability to breed them, and everybody would have to come to Alexandria to buy them. So we see here that the cows and the pigs from Alexandria, when they had their wombs removed, didn't die. This shows that a womb that is taken out doesn't cause an animal to be a terefa. So therefore, they could live, and they're not considered to be a terefa.
And amar (said) Rabbi Tarfon when he heard this: “Your donkey has gone, Tarfon.” If you're going to sell his donkey, you have to sell your donkey to pay the cow's owner for the loss caused by his ruling. That's what they told Rabbi Tarfon: “Your chamor (donkey)'s gone.” Rabbi Tarfon disagreed and said, “No, Rabbi Tarfon, you're not obligated to pay, because you're considered to be an expert by the Beit Din, and you have permission to judge.” Whoever is an expert by the court is considered to be an expert. He is not obligated to pay for the mistake that he made in his ruling.
So therefore, we prove from here that if someone made a mistake and they weren't a mumcheh, they'd be obligated to pay. Someone who is a mumcheh is not obligated to pay.