I rented a car to drive round trip from New York to Toronto. The car broke down. I contacted the rental company and was told to call a towing company to tow the car to a mechanic.

Q: Am I obligated to spend time arranging for the repair of the rental company’s car, or have I fulfilled my responsibility by notifying them that the car broke down?

A: Obviously, if the car-rental agreement specifies your responsibility, you are bound by the terms of the contract. Similarly, if there is a clear custom regarding this situation, you would be obligated to follow that custom since a well-known custom is comparable to an explicit condition.

Your question arises if the contract does not provide instruction for who is responsible and there is no well-known practice. The first consideration is who is responsible to pay for the towing, and the second issue is who must spend the time to make sure that the car is repaired.

The first point we will address is a circumstance in which your negligence caused the damage. If someone kills another’s animal, the mazik (damager) must return the animal to the owner. For example, if Reuven digs a pit and Shimon’s animal falls in and dies, Reuven must raise the animal from the pit and deliver it to Shimon (C.M. 403:3). Sma (403:2, 8) asserts that the mazik’s responsibility is limited to the cost of taking the animal out of the pit, whereas Pischei Teshuvah (403:1) cites authorities who maintain that the mazik is also responsible for the related exertion.

Furthermore, there are authorities who maintain that there is no difference between an animal that died and a utensil that broke (Ketzos 386:10) and if one damaged a car, he is responsible to pay the towing costs. Others contend that a mazik’s responsibility is limited to dead animals and the principle cannot be applied to one who broke a utensil. Accordingly, there is no precedent that a mazik must give the time and effort involved in repairing or salvaging a broken utensil. Therefore in the case of a car, the mazik is exempt, since the towing costs are an indirect result (grama) of the damage (Erech Shai 386:3; see also Even Ha’ezel, Geneivah 1:14). (However, it is possible that when the mazik is responsible to pay for the repairs [Shach 95:18 and 387:1] the towing costs are included because the car cannot be repaired unless it is towed to a repair shop.)

The above principles apply to a mazik, but a shomer — custodian — who was negligent is certainly responsible for the towing costs. The Gemara (B.K. 11a) rules that a shomer must transport the dead animal to beis din and commentators note that the same is true for a utensil (Erech Shai, ad loc.). On the other hand, when the shomer is exempt from liability, e.g., it broke in the normal course of use (maisah machmas melachah), he is not liable for the indirect costs and his sole responsibility is to inform the owner that the object broke (Nimukei Yosef to B.K. 11a).

Nevertheless, if the owner is not present to hire a towing company, the custodian is obligated to make these arrangements (Nimukei Yosef; see also C.M. 294:6). Although the owner could invest a significant amount of time and energy to arrange the repair, when it is significantly easier for the custodian to make the necessary arrangements, he is obligated to do so, and the owner must reimburse him (Beis Ephraim, C.M. 35; Meishiv B’Halachah 21).