An eye for an eye.

Provision §229 of the Code of Hammurabi, promulgated c. 1750 BC by Hammurabi, the sixth king of the First Babylonian Dynasty. The Code, consisting of 282 laws inscribed on a basalt stele, is one of the earliest and most complete written legal codes in human history. §229 provides: if a builder constructs a house and, due to defective workmanship, the house collapses and kills the owner, the builder shall be executed. §230 extends this harshly: if the owner's son dies, the builder's son shall be executed. §231 addresses the death of a slave with in-kind compensation. These provisions represent the most extreme form of lex talionis (the law of retaliation, or "eye for an eye") applied to professional negligence. Modern legal criticism notes (1) the injustice of vicarious punishment extending to the builder's innocent family, (2) disproportionality of capital punishment for what would today be construed as negligent homicide or a construction defect claim, and (3) the class-based differential treatment (slaves receive only in-kind compensation). Nonetheless, §229 is celebrated as a foundational precedent for strict professional liability and the modern doctrines of engineering ethics, product liability, and housing quality regulation.