One who shames another must pay the shamed party reparations. It was the sages who determined the amount of reparations due. Thus, for example, they ruled that one who slaps another (the slap not only causes physical pain, it embarrasses) must pay 200 zuz (approximately 40,000 NIS, as the rapist of an unmarried girl would pay), and one who slaps another with the back of his hand (which doubles the insult) is assessed by the sages at 400 zuz (approximately 80,000 NIS).
One of the sages, Abba son of Mamel, asks: if one shames a sleeping person who subsequently dies, unaware that he had been shamed, must the reparations be paid? What are the issues under debate? On one hand, he did not know he had been shamed. On the other hand, he may not have known he had been shamed, but the act caused him to be belittled before the masses. Another sage, Rav Papa, put the issues under debate thusly: are the reparations paid because of the shame caused to the person who was embarrassed (in our case he had not been embarrassed because he slept and then immediately died), or are the reparations for the shame of the family (in our case, though he slept and then died, the family was still shamed)?
(Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Bava Kamma 86b)