"Interference promoted by impersonal or disinterested motives has been sanctioned; Similarly with things in the public interest".
And:
"Justification because of some statutory or contractual privilege".
Ben Shachar does not enter, as far as I understand, into any of these areas. He had no legal or contractual right to remain in the leased property beyond April 30, 1971, and he does not claim that in certain circumstances, which are appropriate to his situation at the time, he had permission under the contract with Knopf to remain in the premises or to extend the lease period. He did enter into a new relationship with Knopf on May 2, 1971, but this relationship was (as explained above) the result of Ben Shachar's behavior, who refused to vacate on various grounds. Protecting one's economic interest and the desire to prevent oneself from losing money do not justify causing harm to others.
My conclusion is therefore that Ben Shachar had no sufficient justification to remain in the leased property after the date.
- In this way, I came to Ben Shachar's arguments, which I detailed above. I will discuss them in their order:
- A/2 is a contract for appearance
In my opinion, the learned President was right in rejecting the argument. As he noted in his judgment, the parties were not satisfied with the conditions appearing in the standard form, but added their own conditions. Moreover, it is precisely Dr. Eiger's concern that he was sent to register P/2 as the beginning of the period as the date of May 1, 1971, by virtue of which indicates that this is a valid contract, and P/8 also points in the same direction. The absence of a date of its signature is not important, since the beginning of the lease period is decisive. Nor is the absence of a stamp proof that the contract is merely an eye-catcher. In any event, this is fundamentally a factual finding, and I do not see any error in the considerations of the trial court that may justify our intervention.
- A/2 is not a "legally binding contract"
The trial court also gave a correct answer to this argument. A contract does not cease to be "legally binding" just because it is not enforceable in kind. It is sufficient that its breach establishes a cause for compensation for the party upstanding: Civil Appeal 541/74 Yehuda Perminsky, et al. v. David and Ziva Sandrov, IsrSC 29(2) 253, at pp. 258-259. The situation may be different when the contract that was violated was, for example, a temporary employment that may be terminated at any time: Civil Appeal 438/58 to Dieslaw and Magda Greenbaum v. Jewish Agency for Palestine, IsrSC 14 109; IsrSC 33 220 by Justice Silberg, cited in Hamer Civil Case 11792/69 Edgar Horowitz v. Hachamei Menashe, IsrSC 342, Id. at p. 345. I have emphasized the word "perhaps", since there is a tendency to expand in England, according to which a tort is considered to have caused a breach of contract even when the contractual relationship that was damaged was purely temporary: see a suggestion in Salmond, p. 369.
- The trial court called the question of what damage was caused to the appellant a "complicated question" and in light of the result it reached anyway, it refrained from discussing it. He also refrained from discussing the question of whether there was a basis for a claim against Mr. Amir Ben Shahar, who was only a manager of the defendant company.
Therefore, I would accept the appeal, cancel the judgment of the District Court and return the case for a decision on these two questions. Because of the time that has passed, the president on duty can, if he so wishes, allow the parties to re-summarize their arguments on the same questions.