The witness, Mrs. Feldman: If there are really things here that need explanations, let the lawyer explain it to me.
The Honorable Judge Bibi: So why didn't you ask him to explain it to you? Maybe you asked, why didn't you tell him, 'Listen, Attorney Winder, what am I signing? Can you explain it to me?'?
The witness, Mrs. Feldman: It was, you know, in between, like that for five minutes, we arrived, everything quickly, quickly, between meetings,
The Honorable Judge Bibi: So I don't understand, you had an expectation, you come with an expectation that they will explain to you, they don't explain to you, you don't even say, 'Explain it to me'?
The witness, Mrs. Feldman: No, I trusted my husband to say, 'I need to recycle.'
The Honorable Judge Bibi: So you didn't expect him to explain it to you.
The witness, Mrs. Feldman: No, he told me, 'You have to recycle a signature.'
The Honorable Judge Bibi: So I ask if you expected Adv. Winder to explain it to you. You, on a personal level now, on the factual level come to the signature, you say 'I expected them to explain to me,' I expected it doesn't mean, you don't say 'I was expected to be explained in retrospect,' you say 'I expected to be explained,' that is, in real time you had an expectation that someone would explain something to you, so the question is, who did you expect to explain to you?
The witness, Mrs. Feldman: In real time, I trusted my husband that what he was saying was true.
The Honorable Judge Bibi: I mean, in real time you didn't expect to be explained, I ask a question and you'll answer it verbally.
The witness, Mrs. Feldman: Yes, that's right.
The Honorable Judge Bibi: Yes. And in real time, you don't expect to be explained, and in real time, you don't read what you're signing.
The witness, Mrs. Feldman: No, I haven't read what I'm signing."
- Finally, I did not find that the additional testimonies that were made on behalf of the plaintiff - of Mr. Grinzig and Ms. Stoll - are sufficient to substantiate the plaintiff's claims regarding the "testimony of method and similar acts" of Adv. Winder, a doctrine on the basis of which the plaintiff sought to learn an equal derivation as to the event in which she signed in front of Adv. Winder, from the event in which Mr. Grinzig and Ms. Stoll signed before Adv. Winder. More precisely, she argued that since Adv. Winder did not give these witnesses an explanation prior to their signing of loan and lien documents, this is how he behaved in her case. As to this argument, I will begin by noting that it is doubtful in my opinion whether it is possible to apply the doctrine of similar acts in the present case, even though in the framework of the case law the possibility of applying it to civil law was also recognized (see Yaniv and Aki, Law of Evidence, 2, at page 991 (2020)). This is in view of the fact that in order for the court to decide to permit such testimony: "It is required to carefully examine the evidentiary value of the testimony (regarding similar acts) in the circumstances of the case before it. For this purpose, the court must weigh the evidentiary value of the testimony against the extent of the expected harm to the litigant by creating a prejudice against him and blackening his face. Bringing testimonies about similar acts will be possible only when the evidentiary benefit expected from them outweighs the fear of creating a prejudice against the litigant. Therefore, the evidence of similar acts must have considerable evidentiary value with respect to the controversial question in the trial, and its potential evidentiary value must outweigh the fear of creating a prejudice against the litigant." [ibid.]
In the case at hand - first of all - it is doubtful in my opinion whether we are indeed dealing with similar acts. This was while Adv. Winder himself noted that the signature of the plaintiff - whom he knew and who recognized that the transaction in which she was engaged was a risk transaction - was different from a case in which the signature of a person with whom he was not acquainted.