Halakhah for Bava Batra 5:28
Arukh HaShulchan
We have established that sight damage (hezek re'iyah) is a real form of damage. For most people are particular about others watching their actions, their use [of the courtyard] and their work, because the evil eye results from the gaze of others - and the Sages, may their memory be blessed, said (Bava Metzia 107a) that it is prohibited for a person to stand by another’s field when [its ripe grain] is standing; and they also expounded about the verse (Deuteronomy 7:15), "The Lord will ward off from you all sickness," this is the evil eye - and furthermore, there are many kinds of work and use that require privacy, such that when someone else is watching, one is prevented from doing them. But we have also established that there is established use (chazakah) with sight damage (showing the damaged party's consent to the situation). However there is a disagreement about the measure of established use, as I have written in the beginning of Arukh HaShulchan, Choshen Mishpat 153. For there are some that say that immediately when his fellow does [an action that impinges on his privacy] and it becomes known to him and [yet] he is quiet, it is immediately [considered] acquiescence. But there are others that say that it requires three years and a justification [of the action]. And we have already explained there in paragraph 3, regarding the established use of sight damage, that since there is a doubt about the law, the burden of proof is upon the one who wants to extract what his fellow [possesses]; and the one damaged is called the possessor. Hence there is no established use here without a justification and with less than three years. However there is established use with sight damage. And even though there are some great rabbis that hold that there is no established use at all with sight damage, our rabbis who are the authors of the Shulchan Arukh have determined that there is established use. And likewise should one instruct once a person has established his use for three years with a justification.
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