Sefer HaChinuch ספר החינוך

The commandment on the court to judge concerning damages of destruction: To judge concerning the damages of the tooth and the foot — meaning to say one who damaged his fellow with a damage that came as a result of [his animal’s] foot or tooth — that we must obligate him in payment from his choice properties for all that he destroyed, as it is stated (Exodus 22:4), “If a man destroys the field, etc.” For example, one who brings his animal into the field of his fellow and he ate there; or destroyed those things that sustain themselves from it, when it passed through there with its feet. And they, may their memory be blessed, explained that it is [referring to] the tooth (Bava Kamma 2b). And they, may their memory be blessed, explained that that which is written afterwards, “and he sent its destroyer, etc.” [refers to] the foot. And it is stated about both of them, “and with the best of his field and the best of his vineyard shall he pay.”

The root of the commandment of jurisprudence is well-known.

Its laws are, for example, what are the places in which one is liable for the tooth and the foot and what are the ones in which one is not liable for them (Bava Kamma 24b); the difference in the law if it eats what is fitting for it to eat or it eats something not fitting, and so [too,] that which is fitting under duress — for example a cow that ate barley, a donkey that ate vetch or fish, a pig that ate meat, a dog that licked oil or a cat that ate dates — that if it derived benefit, it pays according to what it benefited. And the rest of its details are in Gittin and in [Bava] Kamma. And there in the chapter [entitled] Hachovel (Bava Kamma 84b), they said that that which Rava said that we collect, with an ox against an ox, for the tooth or the foot, is with those that are muad from the beginning. (See Tur, Choshen Mishpat 399-406.)

And [it] is practiced by males, since it is upon them to administer justice. But women are, nonetheless, included in the law of payments, whether they caused damage or had damage caused to them. And a court that transgresses it and does not judge this law as it is written has negated a positive commandment.