(3) Demand for payment according to The Tax Ordinance (Collection)
- As to the demand for payment of a debt under section 4 of the Tax Ordinance (Collection) (Appendix E to the affidavit that was completed), there is no dispute that this notice did indeed reach the plaintiff. However, in view of the fact that, as noted above, there is no indication that the fine notices were provided to the plaintiff, the alleged offense has become obsolete and the defendant was not entitled to send the demand under the Tax Ordinance (Collection) at all.
- In any event, following the receipt of the demand for payment, the plaintiff contacted the defendant, in April 2020, with a request to cancel the report and the fine. The plaintiff sent two emails, to different email addresses of the defendant. The defendant does not dispute this, but claims that the messages reached the defendant's "spam" box. It should be noted that when (about a year later) the plaintiff spoke with the municipality's representative, Shir, she noted that she had found the plaintiff's request by email, without mentioning anything about her arrival at the spam box: "I see you sent in 2020, I see" (Appendix 6 to the plaintiff's affidavit, p. 2). It is also puzzling how two different messages, for two different email addresses, both ended up in the spam box. Tam testified that until that case, it had never happened that emails had reached spam ("Until this incident, not in years, it had never happened to me", p. 48, s. 26).
The defendant's witness, Mr. Tam, recounted in his testimony a different version than the one that emerges from the transcript of the conversation, and according to him, it was not Shir who located the plaintiff's message, but he himself ("She didn't know any spam, she didn't know about spam... After I turned to our computer, we found it. I myself did not find it easily", pp. 50, 35-37). Needless to say, the same song was not brought to testify by the defendant, even though it was mentioned in the list of witnesses on her behalf of January 29, 2023. This refusal also acts in accordance with the defendant's duty and shows that Shir's testimony would have strengthened the plaintiff's version.
- The plaintiff claimed that he had tried to contact the defendant by phone, but due to the fact that the coronavirus lockdown was in place at the time, he did not receive any response ("I called several times to get answers and no one answered me," pp. 29, paras. 28-29). Had the defendant indeed handled the plaintiff's application from April 2020 on time, there is a fairly high probability that it would have ordered the cancellation of the report and the fine. Just as she did about a year later, when the plaintiff contacted her after the foreclosure was imposed. Hence, due to the defendant's lack of treatment, the demand for payment was not cancelled at that time.
- 2.III. Interim Summary
- In summary, at this stage, the defendant did not present delivery of the report dated June 26, 2017 - neither the handwritten report nor the printed report; As for the report dated December 18, 2017 - there is also no presumption of delivery in his case, neither of the handwritten report nor of the printed report. Hence, it was not entitled to send a demand for payment by virtue of the Tax Ordinance (Collection). Even after she sent the demand for payment, the defendant should have cancelled it, after the plaintiff contacted her, but she did not do so due to a failure on her part.
- The conclusion is that the seizures imposed on the plaintiff's bank accounts were indeed imposed unlawfully, as he claimed. This conclusion is strengthened by the response sent by the defendant in response to the plaintiff's request of July 15, 2021 (after the foreclosure was imposed): "The foreclosure was in error and does not belong to you, so it was canceled." Even if this is not a formal confession, it is evidence that acts in accordance with the defendant's duty and is sufficient to strengthen the plaintiff's claims that the foreclosure was imposed unlawfully (with regard to the confession of a litigant, see Civil Appeal 279/89 "Hassanna" Israeli Insurance Company in Tax Appeal v. Damati, IsrSC 47(3) 156 (1993)).
- As stated, the defendant did not claim any defense claim by virtue of sections 14-15 of the Prohibition of Defamation Law, and therefore the issue of the damage and the amount of compensation must be examined.
- 3. Damage and Compensation
- The defendant elaborated in her investigation and summaries on the issue of proving the damage and its height. Her argument is that in the circumstances of the case, including the amount of the foreclosure, the existence of a credit balance in the bank accounts, the non-stopping of payments, the length of time the foreclosure was imposed and other circumstances, no damage was caused to the plaintiff. The defendant's conclusion is strengthened, according to her, by two proceedings that she herself undertook: a writ of execution proceeding to collect expenses in the sum of ILS 750 that the plaintiff did not pay; A claim in the amount of ILS 1,000 for reimbursement of expenses that were paid and canceled. From the very existence of these proceedings, which the plaintiff was not "alarmed" by, the defendant wishes to learn that the plaintiff was "not moved" by the existence of collection proceedings, and that he is accustomed to them.
- As was ruled in the Gessler case, the very imposition of a foreclosure on the plaintiff's accounts constitutes defamation, even if it is a small amount of foreclosure. This is because the very imposition of the foreclosure is intended to present the plaintiff as someone who is ostensibly evading the payment of his debts, and this is likely to humiliate him and damage his good name. This is especially true when it comes to a person conducting business. The length of time the foreclosure was imposed, the amount of the foreclosure, the fact that no payments were actually stopped in the plaintiff's accounts and the other circumstances that the defendant pointed out, have an impact on the amount of the damage and the amount of compensation that should be awarded. To be precise, this is compensation that the court has the authority to award, without proving the amount of the damage. It should be noted that in awarding compensation in such circumstances, authorities should be encouraged to act proportionately and carefully when taking collection procedures, and in particular drastic measures such as imposing a foreclosure on the bank's account, without conducting a preliminary examination of the validity of the inventions that preceded it.
- A review of case law dealing with defamation lawsuits for the imposition of an unlawful foreclosure shows a very wide range of the amount of compensation awarded, depending on the circumstances of the case, ranging from ILS 3,500 to ILS 70,000.
- In the circumstances of the case, I do not believe that compensation should be awarded on the high threshold, from all of the following considerations: the defendant did not prove that payments were in fact stopped or checks were canceled; the defendant did not present his credit rating before or after the imposition of the foreclosures (although in my opinion there is judicial knowledge that the imposition of a foreclosure adversely affects the credit rating); the foreclosures were for a relatively low sum and were canceled after a short time. Immediately after the plaintiff contacted the defendant. Taking all of these into account, the compensation for defamation will be ILS 7,000.
- Conclusion
- Thus, I have reached every conclusion that unlawful foreclosures were indeed imposed on the plaintiff's accounts. These foreclosures constitute a tort by virtue of the Prohibition of Defamation Law, which justifies awarding compensation. As to the amount of compensation, I found that in the circumstances of the present case, the compensation would be in the sum of ILS 7,000.
- Now to the issue of expenses and fees in the proceeding. As a rule, when a claim in the amount of ILS 150,000 is filed and it is accepted on the lower side (less than 5% of the amount of the claim), there is no reason to award expenses and fees in favor of the plaintiff (and possibly even the opposite). However, the defendant's conduct in the proceeding was characterized by a multitude of motions, most of which were rejected, and by insisting on the end of iodine in every matter relating to the plaintiff, and on the other hand, in the "flexibility" of the procedures as far as they relate to the defendant itself, including a number of requests to submit evidence late, including a few days before the date of the evidence. In addition, the defendant frequently used aggressive and blunt language, completely unnecessarily. In the summaries as well, the defendant attributed to the plaintiff "lack of inhibitions", "fabrication of false versions", "nonsense and the language of sewage" (paragraphs 29-30 of the summaries). Even when it comes to adversaries on both sides of the legal process, there is room to adopt respectful and non-offensive language, certainly when it comes to a public authority. Because of this conduct, I saw fit to award expenses to the defendant in the sum of ILS 5,000.
The amounts awarded will be paid within 30 days, otherwise they will bear differences in shekel interest from the date of the judgment.