What rights does the owner of a shor tam or a shor muad have to sell their animal after it caused damage or to designate it to the beit hamikdash or to slaughter it or give it as a gift? Does it matter if it is before they came to court or after? What if someone he owed money to came and collected the animal as payment? Does it matter if he had a lien on the animal before or after it damaged? Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda disagree on how to explain the classic case of shor tam described in the Torah – it says that one halves the amount of the animal that damaged and halves the amount of the dead animal. They disagree about whether the owner of the shor tam has rights also to the animal he killed. There is a discussion regarding what is the practical difference between the 2 opinions (since both agree that in a typical case, the bottom line payment is the same). Also some ridiculous cases are raised in which if we take the verse at face value, the owner may either gain on the deal or on the other extreme pay more than the damage he caused. Therefore it is explained that in those cases, we do not take the verses at face value.
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