The partial payment of consideration for the month of January 2020 should not be regarded as an admission of the existence of an agreement to pay partial payment each month, since the plaintiff began working only on January 12, 2020 (p. 33 of transcript 11-16). Had there been an agreement between the parties as the defendants claim for partial payment, I would have expected that the plaintiff's work hours report would be submitted every month, which was not done by the defendants.
In addition, when the defendant was asked by the court how he knew what proportionate portion of the monthly consideration in the sum of ILS 14,000 he would have to pay the plaintiff and how he decided how much he would pay the plaintiff in March and April 2020, the defendant did not have a convincing answer, except for the words that there was an agreement "that he would receive 9,000, 9,000 or something", without supporting the alleged agreement with any reference (p. 59 of the transcript of paras. 6-14). Consent denied by the plaintiff.
It was further proven before me that it was not the plaintiff who agreed to waive the balance of the consideration and there was no prior agreement on partial payment, but rather that the defendant contacted him in March and April: "... So I guess that's what happened, that I turned to Manny, told him that there was no income this month, if it was possible to pay the relative part. I paid the proportional share. as much as I can" (p. 59 of the transcript, paras. 6-9).
Therefore, I order the defendants, jointly and severally, to pay the balance of the unpaid consideration for the months of March and April 2020.
- As for the month of December 2020, the defendants were unable to prove that the plaintiff did not work at all in December, inter alia, since a report of working hours was not attached. I will refer to pp. 30-31 of the transcript in the framework of the plaintiff's response time and time again that he did indeed work in December 2020 (p. 30 of the transcript Qs. 30-33), meetings were held in the office to which the plaintiff arrived, meetings with clients, taking the computer, formatting, returning the information, a meeting with a client regarding an autonomous vehicle, and on December 18, the defendant asked the plaintiff to transfer to him calls, files, recordings, etc. The plaintiff reiterated the agreement that his salary did not depend on the number of hours he worked. Therefore, it is sufficient for me to have even one meeting that took place together with the plaintiff during the month of December 2020, when the plaintiff replied to the court's question on page 67 of the transcript, that he did not remember this. Where the plaintiff remembers this and there is no dispute that there was a meeting between the plaintiff and the defendant in that month regarding the work, this is sufficient to obligate the defendants to pay the full monthly consideration for the month of December 2020.
The fact that the defendants did not maintain an orderly hours report is a hindrance to them on this issue and they are unable to build on a retrospective claim raised by the defendant in an email dated December 21, 2020 that the plaintiff's work was completed on November 30, 2020, where this is not agreed upon between the parties and was not clearly and explicitly written even before December 2020.