When
a porter carries someone’s keg from one place to another, he has the
legal responsibility of a custodian. If he accidentally slips and
breaks the keg, then Rabbi Meir says that whether he is paid or not, he
can swear and free himself from liability.
Rabbi
Yehudah says that slipping is negligence. Therefore, a paid porter is
liable for it, as any paid custodian, but an unpaid porter is not.
And
Rabbi Meir? He agrees that stumbling is considered negligence, but
since people are usually not careful about it, the Rabbis made a decree
that a porter can be absolved through an oath, because otherwise nobody
will move a keg of his fellow. He swears that he did not break it
deliberately.
