If a woman purchased meat from a Kosher butcher shop, and the butcher later discovers that he had received the wrong shipment and the meat was not Kosher, is the woman entitled to a refund for the meat?
The Shulhan Aruch (Hoshen Mishpat 234:2-3) rules that a customer is, indeed, entitled to a full cash refund for non-Kosher meat that was presumed to be Kosher. Even if the meat had already been eaten, the butcher must refund the customer. The Shulhan Aruch explains that one cannot be said to derive benefit from food that the Torah forbids for consumption. Consumption of such food does not constitute benefit, and thus the butcher must refund the customer. Of course, if some or all of the meat has yet to be eaten, then the customer must return it to the butcher. But even if none of the meat remains, he is entitled to a complete refund.
The exception to this rule is food forbidden for consumption only by force of Rabbinic enactment. For example, although Torah law permits eating meat that has not been salted, the Sages required that all meat undergo a salting process before consumption. If a person purchased and ate meat that was marked as Kosher and it was later discovered that it had not undergone the salting process, he is not entitled to a refund. The reason for this Halacha is that a person who inadvertently transgresses a law enacted by the Sages – as opposed to Torah law – is not considered to have done anything wrong; he is not liable to any punishment and is not held accountable. Hence, if one eats non-salted meat that was mistakenly labeled as salted-Kosher, we do, indeed, consider him to have derived benefit from the food, and he is therefore not entitled to a refund.
If he is notified of the food's status before he partook of it, then he may return it to the butcher and the butcher must reimburse him. However, once he had already eaten the meat, he does not receive a refund, since the meat was forbidden only by force of Rabbinic enactment.
Summary: If a person purchased meat that was labeled as Kosher but was later discovered to have been non-Kosher, the butcher must pay him a full refund even if he had already eaten the meat. If the meat was forbidden only by force of Rabbinic enactment (as opposed to Torah law), then the customer is entitled to a refund only if the meat had yet to be eaten by the time he learns that it is forbidden. After he eats the meat, however, he is no longer entitled to a refund.
See the book- "Pure Money" by Dayan Cohen, pages 166-168.
