However, if it was known that the bull had the habit of goring, yet the owner did not keep it penned up, the owner must pay, animal for animal, and take the dead animal in exchange. The known-risk principle from verse 29 is applied to animal-against-animal injury: knowledge of the danger without preventive action creates full liability. The owner who knew and did not act owes full compensation — animal for animal — rather than the shared-loss arrangement of verse 35. The law is internally consistent: negligence in the face of known danger produces full liability; innocent ignorance produces shared loss. The gradation of liability according to knowledge and preventive action is the basis of all subsequent negligence law in Western legal tradition.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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