A brilliant legal conundrum used to test the reasoning of 1st century Roman lawyers: A barber does business on a roadside as people play ball nearby. Someone kicks the ball so hard it strikes the barber’s hand and he slices the throat of the person he is shaving. Who is to blame?
Conclusions in this thought-experiment are based on the Lex Aquilia - laws that provide compensation to individuals and owners of property injured through the fault of others. 'Culpa' or liability requires three criteria: 1) Damage committed 2) Causality and 3) Unlawfulness...
The jurist Fabius Mela thought the 'culpa' lay with both the barber and the reckless ballplayer, although Roman litigation would not allow for the division of damages in this way...
The jurist Proculus recognises the barber is ultimately at fault - he chooses to do business where games are played and traffic is heavy, accepting the dangers. Yet still, the player has some liability because of his reckless play and letting the ball go outside its bounds.
Lastly, Ulpian believes the customer "has himself to blame", choosing to get a shave in a dangerous place. The all-or-nothing principle means the barber has no liability. Maybe thanks to this story, later laws added notions of "contributory negligence", helpful in complex cases.
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