Playfighting: I Cancelled My Playgroup Slot

By: Rav
Baruch Meir Levine                                                     

This past year, right after Tu’bshvat, I signed up
my daughter in a playgroup next to my home, for the coming school year. Now it turns
out that we will be moving to a new neighborhood. After doing some research I
found out that there is a playgroup for my daughter’s age on my new block and
that they have an opening for the coming school year. This is a huge benefit
for me, since travelling to my first playgroup at those times of the day would be
as they say “a nightmare”, and would take up time which I simply don’t have.
However, when I mentioned this to the Morah, she did not seem too happy about
losing a slot in her playgroup. Am I halachically obligated to keep my daughter
in the first playgroup, considering the difficulties it will impose?

The first
thing to do in such a situation is to determine if the current playgroup slot
can be filled. If indeed it can be filled you would have the right to back out,
provided that the new child would not be more challenging for the Morah to care
for. Nevertheless, even though you have the right to back out, Chazal allowed the Morah to have “ta’arumos” – a grievance, against you for
causing her the inconvenience of replacing your slot. However, if she is able
to find a replacement without difficulty, ta’arumos would not apply. Even so, according
to one view in the Shulchan Aruch, since you would be reneging on your word you would be
classified by Chazal as mechusar amana – lacking faithfulness.

If the slot
cannot be replaced, you may be required to keep the slot. This is because
anytime an employer hires a worker, even verbally, for a job and subsequently
cancels the job, if at the time the worker was hired he could have found
another job and is now no longer able to find one, the employer is considered
as having caused him financial damage and is responsible to pay him his wages.

Accordingly,
if by signing up, you caused the Morah to turn down additional children from
enrolling in her playgroup, then even if you choose not to send your child
there you would still be responsible to continue paying her until a replacement
can be found. However,
you would not have to pay the full amount rather you may deduct the amount that
a Morah would agree to forfeit in order to have one less child in their
playgroup.

On the other
hand, if the Morah still has empty slots available, this indicates that by
signing up with her you did not cause her to turn down any potential enrollees.
Therefore, in such a case you would have the right to switch your child out of
the playgroup unless a kinyan was done to finalize the enrollment. However as discussed
before, the Morah is still given the right to have ta’arumos against you.

There is
however a scenario where an employer may terminate an employment contract without
any halachic ramifications even when this will cause financial loss to the
worker. This is in a case of an oness – an unavoidable termination. The classic example of this,
brought down in Shulchan Aruch is one who hires a worker to water a field and before
the start of the job it begins to rain unexpectedly thus negating the need for
the job. In such a case the employer does not have to pay the worker for cancelling
the job as this was due to an oness.

There are no
hard and fast rules as to what constitutes an “unavoidable termination”.
Certainly without knowing all the details of your situation and what you mean
by “time which I simply don’t have”, it would be impossible to determine if
your termination were halachically considered “unavoidable”. You would likely need
to go to a Bais Din or a Dayin, who could personally hear your situation and possibly
determine if it is indeed one of an oness, thus allowing you to back out.

One
important point though is, that if you had knowledge of the likelihood of this
move at the time that you signed up yet did not inform the Morah of this, the
fact that it is an oness would not absolve you from your responsibility. In such a
case you should have informed the Morah of your possible plans and let her
decide if she wanted to accept your child and the possible risk of losing a
slot or rather look for another child. Since you did not do so, you would be
responsible to reimburse her for all the payments she ends up losing because of
your cancelation.