My 10-year-old son and I were walking to shul one morning. As we passed a neighbor’s yard, which had berry bushes that extended over the sidewalk, my son grabbed a handful of berries and ate them. The neighbor was on his porch at the time and witnessed the incident. He came running over and demanded that my son pay him for the berries. I immediately paid him for the berries, not wanting to cause trouble.

Q: Was I actually required to reimburse him?

A: Shulchan Aruch (Choshen Mishpat 155:27) writes that one has the right to trim branches from a person’s tree if they extend into the public domain in a way that inhibits people from making full use of the public domain. As such, if the neighbor’s bushes extend over the sidewalk as you describe, you have the right to trim those branches. One could argue that if you have the right to do this, you should also have the right to take the fruit from those branches as well. This, however, is not the case; since the bushes grow out of his property, the berries are his (Rema Choshen Mishpat 167:2). Your right to trim branches does not divest the owner of his branches, and he remains the owner of the fruit. If he was not interested in keeping the berries, they would be considered hefker (ownerless), but since he protested when your son took them, he demonstrated the intent to retain proprietary rights to the berries. It is therefore an act of theft to take them.

The error in your neighbor’s demand for reimbursement is that no one, not even a bais din, can demand that a child pay for stolen property that is no longer extant. The most that authorities could do is punish him to teach him a lesson. It is preferable (lifnim meshuras hadin) for the child to pay for damage that he causes, but one cannot force him to pay (Mishnah Berurah 343:9). By extension, a parent is also not obligated to pay for damage that a child caused, unless the parent behaved negligently by placing the child in a circumstance in which the resulting damage was almost inevitable. Since that was not the case here, it was unnecessary for you to pay your neighbor for the berries. Nevertheless, it was certainly a meritorious act of pursuing a peaceful relationship with your neighbor.

Note: Rema mentions that when your son becomes a bar mitzvah, it is recommended that he try to make amends and appease the damaged party.