The liability of a technician working in a repair shop

A question about a technician in a computer repair shop who, while repairing a customer's device, damaged its control board and some parts, in which Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyya answered that the technician is a private hireling liable only for transgression or negligence, as judged by people of expertise, while the shop owner is a common hireling liable to the customer for devices damaged in his shop by his own act or that of his workers. ¹

The questioner said that a man owns a shop for repairing and servicing computers and has a technician working for him; one day he asked the technician to fix some faults in a customer's device, and during the repair the device's internal control board and some other parts were damaged, causing large losses. He asked who bears these losses. ¹

Dar al-Ifta began by characterising the transaction: the customer's request to the shop owner to repair his device, with agreement on the work and the fee, is a contract of hire over a use, as defined by al-Khatib al-Shirbini in Mughni al-Muhtaj (3/438), with three parties. The customer is the hirer seeking the use. The shop owner is hired by customers to repair, and is a common hireling because he works for the public and is not tied to any one hirer, like the porter, the broker, the tailor and the goldsmith; he has also been defined as one who earns his fee by the work rather than by making himself available, as Ibn Maza says in al-Muhit al-Burhani (7/586) and al-Nawawi in Rawdat al-Talibin (5/228). The technician who works for the shop owner is, in his contractual relationship with him, a private hireling, because he works for him in a way that prevents him from working for anyone else during the set working hours, as if he had handed over himself and his time to this employer; he earns his wage by making himself available and by the passage of the period, as al-Muhit al-Burhani and Rawdat al-Talibin say. ¹

It then ruled that the jurists state that the private hireling is not liable for what is damaged in his hands except through transgression or negligence, because he is a trustee, some even reporting consensus on this. It quoted al-Kasani in Bada'i' al-Sana'i' (4/221) that a private hireling who spoils something by mistake without intent is not liable by consensus; Ibn Maza in al-Muhit al-Burhani (7/586) that what perishes in his hands without his doing, or through the work he was permitted to do, carries no liability by consensus; Malik in al-Mudawwana (3/457) that a household servant is not liable for what he breaks unless he transgresses; al-Dardir in al-Sharh al-Kabir (4/28) that there is no liability on a hireling private to a person or a specific group; al-Ramli in Nihayat al-Muhtaj (5/310–311) that a hireling in whose hands property is lost without transgression is not liable on the most evident view; and Ibn Qudama in al-Mughni (5/390) and al-Buhuti in Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat (2/296) that there is no liability on a private hireling for what is damaged by his hand unless he damages it deliberately or is negligent in safekeeping. ¹

Dar al-Ifta said the technician's case must therefore be examined: if he departed from the established technical practices in servicing such devices, or was careless and took no precautions, he is liable for what was damaged by his transgression or negligence; otherwise he bears no liability. Whether negligence or transgression occurred is determined by referring to people of expertise and knowledge in the field, since they are the people of knowledge who must be consulted, as in al-Nahl 43 and al-Furqan 59, and it quoted al-Haskafi and Ibn Abidin in Radd al-Muhtar (5/5) that in every trade and craft its own practitioners are the reference. ¹ If it is established that the technician is not liable, the liability falls on the shop owner towards the owner of the property, because he is a common hireling; it quoted Ibn Shas in Aqd al-Jawahir al-Thamina (3/457), al-Mardawi in al-Insaf (6/74) and al-Ba'li in Kashf al-Mukhaddarat (2/477) that what is damaged in the hands of a private hireling employed by a common hireling, without transgression or negligence, is not the private hireling's liability but is the common hireling's liability to the owner, and explained the difference by the fact that the common hireling is liable by the contract rather than by the act of damage, as al-Kasani says (4/212), for which reason the Ottoman Majalla states that he is liable for the loss arising from his act whether or not he was at fault. ¹

Dar al-Ifta concluded that the customer's request to the shop owner to repair his device is a permissible hire; the shop owner is a common hireling liable for customers' devices damaged in his shop whether by his own hand or by the act of his workers; the technician, in his relationship with the shop owner, is a private hireling not liable for what is damaged in his hands except through transgression or negligence, so if he departed from established practice or was careless he is liable to the shop owner, and otherwise not, the question being referred to people of expertise. ¹

Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyya published this fatwa on dar-alifta.org as no. 8988, dated 2 June 2026, in the category of compensations, among the fatwas of the Grand Mufti Nazir Muhammad Ayyad. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.