In the nursing report dated June 7, 2019, at 06:22, the deceased was "fully conscious" and at 21:16 "fully conscious... is well-versed and communicates with the environment" (p. 5 of the opinion).
In the death notice of Rambam Hospital dated June 9, 2019, the cause of death was stated due to septic shock with multi-system insufficiency (p. 5 of the opinion).
- The expert notes in his opinion that no medical documentation was provided to him prior to the date of drafting the will, June 6, 2019, attesting to cognitive impairment or a dementia process. In addition, the anamenesa mentions the words of daughter P. that the deceased over the years, including until recently, was clear in her thinking (p. 6 of the opinion) and that on the day the will was made orally on the morning of the deceased she was: "alert and lucid when making the will in a verbal manner that dictated to the lawyer her free will, while assessing that daughter P. then expressed her will freely... Due to the mother's insistence and her demand, expressing the mother's desire for a more equitable division for the late son's family (p. 4 of the opinion).
- In his answers to clarification questions sent to him by counsel for the opposing parties, the expert did not change the conclusions of his opinion.
In the framework, the expert clarified that the deceased was able to make a will until the time she entered the septi market, which was diagnosed only after she was admitted to Rambam Hospital, where she was transferred from Nazareth Hospital at 21:55. The expert emphasized that there is no documentation that at the moment of making the will she was in the septi market.
The expert emphasized that the deceased had no background of psychotic disorder or impairment of the reality checker or of a dementia condition.
- The expert was questioned about his opinion and he reiterated his conclusions.
- In his interrogation, the expert confirmed that at the time of the deceased's admission to the hospital in Nazareth on June 6, 2019, she had not been diagnosed with septic shock and that the temperature measured was 36.6 (pp. 26, 20 and 29, 35), and later it rose to 40 (s. 22), which apparently developed, and therefore she was transferred to Rambam Hospital (pp. 29, 19-20).
- The expert made a distinction between two situations: the deceased's medical condition at noon when the words of the will were recited for her condition towards the evening, which worsened (pp. 26, 34-35).
"Five days before her arrival at the hospital, she began to suffer from abdominal pain and vomiting. And the situation got worse in the afternoon, in the morning, there was a fever of 38.5 The situation began, a distinction must be made between the beginning of infection and inflammation and the moment of the collapse of the systems and the failure to satisfy the needs of oxygen for vital systems in the body, which is the stage that develops later on in the septic shock, i.e., an infectious process in the blood" (pp. 28, 32-35).
- With regard to the deceased's complaints in the past year of abdominal pain, vomiting and abdominal pain for 5 days (Q. 28-29) and her evacuation to hospital in an ambulance on June 6, 2019 at 21:30 due to "abdominal pain, vomiting, fever and chills", they still do not, in the expert's opinion, indicate that she is invalid at the time of the statement of the will (p. 27, s. 19).
- The expert emphasized that the deceased was not in a medical state of confusion or dementia at the time of the statement of the will. In addition, for the past five years, there has been no documentation in the deceased's medical file regarding visits to a neurologist or psychiatrist, which completely negates her being in a state of dementia or her inability to identify her daughters as claimed by the objectors (pp. 32, 26 and 33, 1).
- The expert rejected the objections' claim that the deceased did not function and did not communicate with those around her, according to the hospital's nursing report (pp. 30, 25-26). He clarified that the objections' claim that the deceased did not identify people in her vicinity in the past year or that she suffered from an advanced dementia condition should have been started three years earlier, and worsened, which was lacking in documentation (pp. 30, 30-34).
- Halacha is well known regarding the great significance that should be attributed to an expert opinion on behalf of the court, who has the professional tools and the necessary skill to examine and evaluate the question of legal competence of the deceased, and therefore, in the absence of a clear and practical reason, there is no reason to deviate from his recommendations.
- The appointed expert is objective, his opinion is professionally prepared after taking into account all the medical parameters and conducting an opinion that was not hidden.
- The determination of the deceased's competence to sign a will is a clear medical matter, and therefore the testimonies and/or other arguments on this subject, as argued by counsel for the objectors, that the deceased was in a septic shock at the time the will was claimed, have no value.
- In our case, the expert's opinion was not contradicted, and it stands firm in its unequivocal conclusion that the deceased was competent to make the will.
- Therefore, I reject the objections' arguments and determine that the deceased was legally competent to discern the nature of the will at the time of her oral statement.
- Have the requirements been met according to the instructions The Inheritance Law For the Fulfillment of the Late Will as a Will of a Person Who Lies Down
The Law Regarding an Oral Will
- Section 23 of the Inheritance Law, 5725-1965 (hereinafter: "the Inheritance Law") establishes the conditions of an oral will:
“)a) A person who has fallen ill and who sees himself, in circumstances justifying it, in the face of death, may make an oral statement in the presence of two witnesses who hear his language.