Civil Case (Tel Aviv) 12050-12-17 Nirolin Life Sciences Ltd. v. Dr. Manana Dan – Center for Aesthetic Medicine Ltd. - part 22

"Only after you complain to the police and tell them that the checks were stolen or that you were deceived and you were in the police did they get out of you and didn't call."

"Very quickly cancel all the checks you gave them because they don't have any merchandise either."

"We talked to the factory owner and they didn't lie all the way, he was in a total panic from Nirolin until the last minute, he couldn't imagine how low they could go down and cheat us all."

1. The defendant argues in its defense in this matter (paragraph 21 of the statement of defense) that it did not establish the WhatsApp group and did not determine its name, and that when the plaintiffs began to ignore customer inquiries, the customers began to understand that the plaintiffs were deducting their checks on the gray market, including future checks for which goods had not yet been purchased, and then the truth came to light, according to which the plaintiffs were deceiving and deceiving customers.
2. In their affidavits, Meisler and Hodis more or less repeated what was alleged in the lawsuit.  Manana claimed in paragraphs 23 and 24 of the affidavit that the cosmetologists who worked with the plaintiffs began to discover their acts of fraud and sting, which included deducting their checks despite not being paid for them, and as a result, they canceled the checks or part of them and some of them went into insolvency.
3. Manana further claims that her bank warned her that her checks that she handed over to the plaintiffs had been transferred to companies engaged in money laundering, and that she also claims that to this day the defendants owe nothing to the plaintiffs and that the latter have launched a campaign of lies and slander against the defendant.
4. With regard to the statement (here too it is clarified that the spelling errors are in the original) "Marketable employees are afraid of them because they still deserve to be paid, but I am sorry to disappoint you, they spread their legs and did not pay you a pension money checked by an insurance agent and also a supplier of last month's salary"), it is clear that it meets the definition of defamation according to the law, since a statement according to which the plaintiffs' employees are afraid of them and that the plaintiffs went bankrupt and did not pay pension contributions and it is doubtful that they will pay a salary, It is certainly an advertisement that is liable to "harm a person in his office, whether a public office or another position, in his business, occupation or profession."
5. Does the defendant have a defense in this matter? In my opinion, the answer is no.  The claim of truth in the publication claimed by the defendant was not proven.
6. The defendant did not prove that the plaintiffs' employees were afraid of them, that the plaintiffs went bankrupt or that they did not pay pension contributions or salaries to their employees, since it did not bring any concrete evidence in this regard, such as any of the plaintiffs' employees to testify, documents that would testify that the plaintiffs entered bankruptcy or that they would testify to non-payment of salaries and non-payment of pension contributions to employees.
7. Even if it is proven that the plaintiff has encountered considerable financial difficulties, and as Hodis himself defined it in his testimony, to the point of "crushing", according to him, is solely the defendant's fault of course (see p.  6, para.  28 of July 17, 2024), this does not mean that the plaintiffs have reached a state of bankruptcy at all or in reality, and therefore the defendants have no defense of the truth in the publication of this statement.
8. Therefore, the plaintiffs are entitled to compensation for this statement.
9. With regard to the statement (here too it is clarified that the spelling errors are in the original): "Only after you complain to the police and tell them that checks were stolen or you were deceived and you were in the police station did they get out of you and did not call," it follows that this is a conclusion that Manna draws from her experience with the plaintiffs, against whom she did indeed file a complaint with the police.
10. Therefore, I do not believe that such a statement should be regarded as defamation against the plaintiffs.  The fact that the defendant shares in the WhatsApp group that she complained to the police about what she believes is fraud on the part of the plaintiffs (the very filing of the complaint is not in dispute) and that as a result, the plaintiffs allegedly dropped it or did not call it again, does not constitute a publication that portrays the plaintiffs in a negative light.  The very fact that a certain person complains about an anonymous person to the police does not necessarily present the anonymous person in a negative light, since the complaint can be unjustified.
11. The statement "very quickly cancel all the checks you gave them because they also have no merchandise" portrays the plaintiffs in a negative light and as those who collected checks from all the customers without the possibility of supplying them with goods for them, and therefore constitutes defamation, but here I found that the defendants have the defense of the truth in the publication.
12. Let us begin with the conclusive and repeated findings in the judgment in the promissory note, according to which the plaintiff was not able to prove in the framework of a legal proceeding that she had purchased the quantity of goods that she claimed to have supplied to the defendants, let alone that she supplied the defendants with these goods in the value of the check in question (see in particular paragraphs 31 to 38 of the judgment), a check whose amount, as recalled, was filled out by the plaintiffs themselves and in a huge sum of about ILS 1.6 million.  They are sufficient to prove that there is truth in the claim that "they have no merchandise either", certainly insofar as this statement is directed at the plaintiffs' relationship with the defendants.
13. Even if the defendant's aforementioned statement should be interpreted as referring to the fact that the plaintiffs also have no merchandise for other customers whose checks were collected by the plaintiffs, in my opinion there is sufficient evidence to regard such a statement as a proven truth.
14. The evidence in question concerns first of all the fact that the aforementioned WhatsApp group was established on the name given to it and attributed to the plaintiff fraud, when it was not proven that the defendant established the group or solicitated its establishment, but it was proven from correspondence in the group that was attached, that the group was established by the plaintiff's cosmetologist/client, Mrs. Iris Segal, as appears from Segal's words in the group, according to which "if you know girls I did not add to the group, then this is the time", which indicates that she is the manager of the group and she is the one who started it, and only the manager can add people to the group.  The defendant herself testified that she did not open the group and that it was Segal and that her testimony is reliable to me and is supported, as stated, by Segal's own words in correspondence.

97. If Segal opened a WhatsApp group called "Nirolin Fraud and Fraud" and another cosmetologist of the plaintiff saw fit to join the group, it seems clear that other customers of the plaintiff had claims against the plaintiffs and not only the defendant, when according to the defendant's testimony, which was reliable to me, these are the same claims, i.e., collecting checks without supplying goods.
98. Moreover, from plaintiff 4's conversation with Michal, a representative of one of the clearing companies, it also emerges that other cosmetologists, in this case one named Keren Alfasi, complained that the plaintiff "disappeared with the products", i.e., took checks and did not deliver the goods, just as the defendant warned in a publication she published on the WhatsApp group.

1. Therefore, the defendants have the defense of the truth in the publication with respect to this statement as well.

100. Finally, regarding the fourth statement in the framework of this first publication (here too it is clarified that the spelling errors are in the original): "We spoke with the owner of the factory and they did not lie all the way, he was in a total hell of a nervous state until the last minute he could not believe how low they could go down and deceive all of us", which undoubtedly also constitutes defamation, since it presents the plaintiffs as having also deceived the manufacturer and presents the manufacturer as someone who sees the plaintiffs as having deceived their customers. The defense of the truth in the publication has not been proven.
101. This conclusion clearly emerges from the manufacturer's affidavit, in which there is no mention of fraudulent complaints on the part of the manufacturer towards the plaintiffs or of other grievances, but on the contrary, the manufacturer notes that throughout his years of working with the plaintiffs he felt fair and fair treatment and did not even hear complaints against them from others, except for the defendant. There was no erosion in the manufacturer's statement following his cross-examination.
102. Therefore, the plaintiffs are entitled to compensation for this statement as well.
103. On the four statements combined, which the defendant published in the WhatsApp group as stated above, the plaintiffs petitioned in the suit to charge the defendant a total sum of ILS 100,000 (which constitutes nominal double statutory compensation), in light of the plaintiffs' claim that the publication had the intention to harm (and therefore, as stated, the double compensation under section 7a(c) of the Law applies).
104. As I determined above, the plaintiffs should be awarded compensation for two of the four statements written by the defendant in the framework of this publication, as detailed above.
105. Given that the two aforementioned statements that I found that the defendants had no defense against were published as aforesaid in the customers' WhatsApp group, and that the defendant did not prove that the statements were made on the basis of any references that the defendant had regarding the truth of the matter before it published them, I am convinced that the two statements (one regarding the things that the manufacturer allegedly said in relation to the plaintiffs and the other a statement regarding the plaintiffs' relations with their employees and that the plaintiffs went bankrupt). Indeed, as the plaintiffs claim, they were said with the intention of harming them.
106. With regard to the amount of compensation, consideration must be given to the severity of the two statements, which in themselves was significant, but on the other hand, it must be taken into account that despite the untruthfulness of the publications regarding the bankruptcy and the non-payment of salaries and pensions to the employees, and in relation to the alleged claims of the manufacturer against the plaintiffs, it was proven that the plaintiffs acted in a bad manner, not only vis-à-vis the defendants, but also vis-à-vis the other cosmetologists in all matters relating to the financial calculation in respect of the sale of merchandise and the manner in which the plaintiffs took checks and acted to collect them before they delivered the goods.
107. Therefore, the plaintiffs here are very far from being a "tallit that is all blue" whose name has been damaged. This is a litigant whose name was already significantly tarnished before the defendant's publications were published, and this matter naturally leads to a significant reduction in the compensation.
108. After therefore considering all of the above as well as the other circumstances of the matter as a whole, I have decided to obligate the defendant to pay the plaintiffs together for the two aforementioned statements the sum of ILS 10,000.
109. With regard to the question of the liability of defendants 1 and 2, I found that the claim should be dismissed when it is a statement of defendant 3 and a tort act.

The second case - things that the defendant said to the plaintiff's employees when she entered the plaintiff's offices

110. The second case in which the plaintiffs are petitioning for compensation for defamation relates to the words that the defendant said when the plaintiff's offices were allegedly broken into, things that were said in front of any of the plaintiff's employees who were present at the scene that day, and the following are the things that the defendant said, including the response of one of the employees named Sigal and an employee named Yehoshua (emphases in my underline):

"Manana: They didn't tell you that they crashed , tell me?