such cases occur frequently, and there are two juristic views concerning them. The same applies when a ruler takes from one of two owners whose livestock are combined more than the amount due from them both, without any basis in legal interpretation.

The first view is that the owner alone bears the loss of that excess, and the other owes no part of it, even if the ruler took it on the other’s behalf. For the wrongdoer wronged this owner by taking his property and intended it as a payment on the other’s behalf, yet he is neither the other’s guardian nor his agent for that intention to have legal effect. An unlawful intention alone does not establish a financial liability against the person on whose behalf the property was taken.

A consequence of this view concerns partners in real estate or movable property when the ruler and his deputies exact unjust levies on the property, or highway robbers take something from one of two merchant partners on account of the property they carry. For, if what is seized comes from the jointly owned property itself, one partner has no recourse against the other for his share.

According to this view, if the person making the payment is an agent or guardian, such as an endowment administrator or an orphan’s guardian, it follows that he must bear the loss if what was taken from him did not come from the property itself. However, this consequence applies only if the payment was not made to preserve the property, but because he was coerced into paying.

If, however, the property could not be preserved without the payment he made on its account, then this is an act undertaken to preserve it. It is comparable to paying for protection to safeguard the property, or paying watchmen to ward off thieves and wild beasts. Moreover, guardians and agents are authorized by customary practice to make such payments, for he