The defendant: "And if you think I'm talking nonsense, I'm willing to go with you to court or public court... Do you want to?"
Miran Siso: "What exactly are you going to go to trial with me, sweetheart? Go to trial with Danel/Manor or whatever they are called today. With all the noise you make, you might really sue, in the meantime you're just scaring anyone who wants to do surrogacy abroad."
The defendant: "Don't be fooled by the fact that I'm talking nonsense. I ask if you want to. As far as I'm concerned, it's fun."
Miran Siso: "You're confused. Your wars don't interest me, I'm not looking to make delicacies out of nothing, and I certainly don't scare anyone."
The defendant: "So I'll turn to a lawyer and file a lawsuit for saying nonsense and scaring. This is defamation... My wars don't interest you, but they interest me, so if someone claims that I'm saying nonsense, I'll want to fight for my good name and I'll do whatever (and that's) I'll do. I'm never scared. I always do."
- On November 21, 2022, the plaintiff published another publication in which it presents the plaintiff as someone who defrauded the company's surrogacy customers and artificially inflated its value in order to maximize his profits. On January 16, 2023, the plaintiff published another publication in which the plaintiff's picture was presented and it was written that she (the defendant) was collecting materials for a large television investigation about Manor. The combination of the plaintiff's photo, and the publications that preceded the publication of the case, all of which attribute criminal offenses to the plaintiff, give the publication a different context, according to which the investigation is in relation to the plaintiff, and he is the "star of the investigation."
- Summary of the defendant's arguments
- The defendant claims that the lawsuit is a claim for silencing. The defendant is a media personality, entrepreneur and mother of two children. The plaintiff is trying to silence the defendant and prevent her from doing her journalistic work and exercising her freedom of personal expression only because the defendant's words are not to his liking. The lawsuit is intended to serve as a preemptive blow to the defendant's lawsuit. It was further argued that the publications mentioned in the statement of claim do not constitute defamation. The plaintiff, who is aware that this is not defamation, is trying to "create" a new cause of action - "constructive insult".
- On November 8, 2022, the plaintiff and his daughter sent a letter from their attorney. The defendant replied to the letter. In light of her response, the plaintiff's counsel and daughter stopped handling the case, and the plaintiff's daughter abandoned her claims. According to the defendant, the facts do not interest the plaintiff, these are honor and ego struggles.
- In relation to the first publication , it was claimed that the defendant wrote in the publication that the plaintiff had committed fraud and signed fictitious contracts. Even if this in itself is true, this is not what is written in the excerpt in the statement of claim; The second publication relates to a company in a tax appeal in which the plaintiff claimed he had no relevant role; The third publication refers to the agency without naming it, and there is no reference to the plaintiff and his family.
The publication dated November 21, 2022, does not relate to the plaintiff and is not mentioned therein; The publication dated January 16, 2023, relates to the company and not to the plaintiff, and the plaintiff himself demonstrated how the public knows how to differentiate between the plaintiff and the period in which he managed the company and the company after its sale to Danel.
- The defendant acted to hold an open discussion on the subject that should be held in a public hearing. The defendant was exposed to injustices, negligence, exploitation and abuse by surrogacy pimps and discovered that the discourse is mostly controlled and directed by interested parties. Since independent voices cannot be insured, the defendant has opened a group for an open discussion on the subject. The defendant acted in her capacity as a journalist, raising questions and contributing her opinions and questions to an open public discourse. The defendant presented the correct facts and asked questions that should be asked. In his dishonesty, the plaintiff concealed the defendant's response of November 15, 2022. In the plaintiff's letter to the defendant that preceded her reply, not a single offensive publication was mentioned. What the defendant wrote is an expression of opinion, participation in public discourse and the performance of her journalistic work. In the statement of claim, the plaintiff does not isolate a single fact that is not true from everything attributed to the defendant.
- The filing of the lawsuit about six months after the first publication, two and a half months after the plaintiff and his daughter's letter, shows that the plaintiff was not harmed at all by the publications and did not consider them defamatory.
- With regard to the date on which he ended his position as an officer of the company, the defendant claims that he specified non-conforming dates in the letter he sent to the defendant and in the statement of claim. The defendant further notes that the praiseworthy correspondence on her and her spouse's part was not made at all, for the most part, with the plaintiff. The correspondence was transmitted at the height of the times, when the defendant and her spouse were dependent on their money and their company's passengers.
Part Three - Discussion and Decision
- Order of the Hearing and Decision
In the following paragraphs, the discussion will be presented with reference to the following three topics of discussion:
- The first of three topics for discussion, before addressing the alleged publications, will be presented a description of the events and distress to which the defendant referred, as well as her claims regarding the failed surrogacy process. This will be expanded upon in paragraph 9 of the judgment.
- The second of three topics for the hearing, the plaintiff's claims regarding the surrogacy process are not unfounded. Reference to surrogacy proceedings in which the surrogacy company was involved, as well as the plaintiff, was also brought by additional testimonies that were heard in the proceeding, and evidence was also brought by the defendant. This will be expanded upon in paragraph 10 of the judgment.
- The third of three topics for discussion, a detailed discussion of the publications for which the lawsuit was filed. This will be expanded upon in paragraph 11 of the judgment.
- A discussion on the first of three issues - a description of the distress to which the defendant referred and a reference to the surrogate who disappeared, the miscarriage and the failure of the surrogacy process
- Defamation lawsuits relate by their very nature to isolated statements or publications that the plaintiff chooses to include in the statement of claim. However, with the filing of the statement of defense, and sometimes even the letter of claim itself, in many cases a broad controversy arises, of which defamatory publications are only one of the appendices. Sometimes, a defamation suit is even filed solely because of the broad dispute and specifically because of a desire to be repaid by the other party. In such cases, defamation law is used as a platform to settle accounts with the other party and file a lawsuit. In such cases, the real motif for filing the lawsuit is not necessarily the monetary compensation demanded - but rather the desire to silence the opposing party or, as stated, to hold him accountable for his words. With regard to the arguments regarding the Prohibition of Defamation Law, which are presented as a cover for the "desire to be repaid" - see, for example, Civil Appeal Authority 2030/22, Yoav Eliasi v. Noa Drucker (of August 31, 2022, Judge Y. Kasher; regarding the filing of a lawsuit as an attempt to "silence", see the discussion in section 11.2.3 below.
Hence, in order to understand the background to the publications, it is correct to preface and relate to the surrogacy process that the defendant and her spouse began. A procedure that failed after the Georgian surrogate disappeared, and later even aborted the fetus of the defendant and her partner. Already at this stage, I will note that when the defendant traveled to Georgia, after the abortion, she discovered, as she said and to her astonishment, that the surrogate was pregnant again, and about this in section 9.3 below.
- At the beginning and at the end of the day, the surrogacy process that the defendant and her spouse began was unsuccessful. The surrogate who was located was not under close supervision and disappeared. Later, the surrogate had an abortion. Like any couple wishing to be parents of a child to be born, the defendant and her spouse pinned their hopes on the process conducted by the surrogacy company. These hopes were not dashed, but were shattered in light of the surrogate's miscarriage - after a period in which she disappeared
- The defendant made a good reference to the fact that the surrogacy company undertook to locate a suitable surrogate, to monitor the procedure and conduct a medical review. In practice, a woman who ran away and disappeared during the process was located. According to the defendant, the disappearance of that surrogate was for a period of three weeks. According to the plaintiff, who was careful not to submit any documentation, the escape and disappearance was for a period of only a week or ten days. In this regard, the plaintiff testified in his cross-examination as follows (Tax Appeal 35, paras. 22-27, emphases not original):
"The witness, Mr. Manor: We came to her, she didn't come for a check-up OK? She had to come for a check-up. The nurse called And we couldn't find her and for a week I don't know 10 days we turned the worlds upside down to find her in the end it turned out that she was at Grandma's on a visit. We brought her in for a check-up, a test was done, the test proved that she was pregnant and everything was fine, the Priluk couple came to Tbilisi, they met, and then I quit the company, it was already the date I retired."