I was given a ketuba to fill-in the names and date, by the wedding they found mistakes in the ketuba, and took extra time to rewrite one causing music and photographer’s overtime cost damages.
What’s the law concerning the hand-written ketuba — before I filled in the ketuba he said that he bought several Ketubos years ago for $10 at wholesale price; today the retail price would be much more.
Do I have to pay for a $10 one or several hundreds?
Another question: one of my mistakes was on the date, but the other mistake was on the name given to me to write, and he admitted that that was his mistake, nevertheless he claims that I also ruined his Ketuba.
What’s the Halacha Approach?
Answer:
The laws of damages are that the current value of the handwritten kesubah must be paid. Therefore, if a kesubah has not yet been filled in (it can still be sold to others), and somebody ruins it, he is obligated to compensate the full current retail value.
If the ketubah will anyway have been ruined by the wrong name, you are not liable to pay the damages. In addition, a ketubah with a wrong date can possibly be fixed, so that there is room to discuss to what degree this is considered ‘ruining’ the ketubah.
