"Without formal authorization, a lawyer is not authorized to represent a client and act on his behalf and on his behalf for any matter, including for the purpose of a legal proceeding. The question of the existence of such authorization is a question that requires proving the fact." (Civil Appeal Authority 842/00 "Rasco" Agricultural and Urban Settlement Company in Tax Appeal - Bandel [Nevo] (July 2, 2000)).
In our case, the person with the formal authorization is Attorney Shira Fadida, who declared before us that she holds a power of attorney to represent all the defendants (see, for example: p. 41, lines 23-26), and the plaintiff did not contradict this fact even with a shred of evidence. This determination is correct even if, according to the plaintiff, the power of attorney that she attached to the first court statement is on behalf of Rani Koren Ltd.
It is not superfluous to add that the plaintiff filed one joint claim against all the defendants, and therefore there was justification for waiting for the end of the evidentiary process and giving a single judgment, as is being done now, and not for the same amount. In any event, and as we will immediately see, there was an employment relationship between the plaintiff and defendant 1, Rani Koren Ltd., only. Thus, the rendering of a judgment against defendants 2-6 was not even correct on its merits. And at the same time, not even in our substantive authority.
Identity of the employer(s)
- As stated, the plaintiff filed the lawsuit against six companies. At the beginning of his affidavit, the plaintiff stated that he had been hired to be CFO for defendants 2-3, but in his cross-examination he clarified that he had filed the lawsuit against all 6 companies because he had performed bookkeeping and financial management for all of them (p. 2 of the transcript, lines 2-22). However, according to the defendants, there is no rivalry between the plaintiff and defendants 2-6. Although all the companies are engaged in the operation of the chain, they claim that only defendant 1 - Rani Koren in a tax appeal - employed the plaintiff, as indicated in the draft employment agreement and in the pay slips given to him. On the other hand, the plaintiff claims that as the chain's CFO, he also dealt with the affairs of companies 2-6, and hence they also employed him. Although the plaintiff has devoted considerable effort to proving this claim, in view of our conclusions with regard to the remedies on their merits, it loses much of its importance in the media. However, and given that the parties have addressed the dispute at length, we will discuss the matter.
- At the outset, it should be noted that there is no legal prohibition on an employer to include in the definition of an employee's position, including reaching an agreement with an employee, that within the framework of his position, he will perform tasks from various tasks and also for "third parties". provided that it is indeed part of the employment contract, and that the contract does not include improper stipulations or those that contradict public policy. It seems that this is true in the case of a corporate structure such as the one before us, and in a 'lateral' position such as the one held by the plaintiff, who, as recalled, served as CFO. In other words, a senior staff position. In other words, the question of the 'breadth' of the plaintiff's position is separate from the question of which of the companies that operate the chain also had an employment relationship with him. In this last context, we will preface the beginning and say that according to our position, the plaintiff has not been able to prove that he was employed by defendants 2-6, as opposed to the possibility that his job included financial handling of any or all of their sons. In this last context, we will add and note that from a factual point of view, all the defendants agree that the plaintiff dealt with the financial affairs of one of their sons, although the exact and to what extent of which of their sons were not clarified before us in detail.
- In any event, and as is well known, the determination of a person's status as an employee is done on the basis of the 'mixed test' at the center of which is the integration test. The positive aspect of this test examines the degree to which a person and the work he performed in the organizational system of the business or workplace (see: Labor Appeal (National) 15868-04-18 Kuta - State of Israel - Ministryof Justice [Nevo] (April 7, 2021)). However, in our case, the plaintiff did not claim or prove that each of these companies constitutes a business that employed employees and that it was integrated into its activity. On the contrary, already in the title of the statement of claim, the plaintiff mentioned for each of the defendants her 'role' in the chain's system, and according to his description, only defendants 1 and 3 employ employees. Thus, according to him, defendant 1 deals with wages and wage control for all hundreds of Israeli network employees, and she is the one who was registered in the pay slips as the plaintiff's employer. Defendant 3, on the other hand, is engaged in importing products from abroad and in the wages of Palestinian workers, which is not relevant to the plaintiff.
- Mr. Kfir Barak testified in consistent, honest and reliable testimony that defendant 1 is the company that employs all of the chain's employees (paragraph 3 of the affidavit; p. 69, lines 2-5). Only she employed the plaintiff (p. 59, lines 32-33), and that the other defendants have no employees at all (p. 74, line 15). According to the defendants, already at the stage of exchanging the drafts of the employment agreement between the plaintiff and defendant 1, it was made clear to him that his role included providing services to other defendants as well. The plaintiff did not contradict the claim, but believed that he had been spoken to about providing services to two other defendants whom he did not remember, and not to all 6 defendants (p. 2, lines 2-23). And when it became clear to him that he was providing services to all the defendants, he did not complain about it to his managers (from p. 3 in line 31 to p. 4 in line 3; from p. 4, lines 12-15 and 23-25). From this we conclude that at the time the plaintiff believed that the demand to handle the financial affairs of all the companies operating the chain was appropriate to the agreements and the role he was hired to fulfill. To this it should be added that the plaintiff did not claim that the work he performed for the additional companies he was forced to perform outside the time for which he received payment from defendant 1.
Apart from his version in his affidavit and in his oral opinion, the plaintiff did not bring any objective evidence supporting the existence of an employment relationship with any of the defendants 2-6. The plaintiff explained that he had filed the claim against "everyone for whom I performed bookkeeping and financial management" (p. 2, line 17), but admitted that in the draft agreement defendant 1 was registered as an employer (p. 3, lines 15-26). And that when he refers to "company" in his affidavits, he is referring to defendant 1 (from p. 39, line 28 to p. 40, line 13). In fact, the only positive evidence that was presented (although it was not attached to the plaintiff's affidavits, but rather to his request for a fee exemption dated September 10, 2023) was the plaintiff's pay slips issued by defendant 1 only, and this is evidence that supports the network's version.