"... Now I tried to talk to my grandson, he didn't speak, I realized that he didn't speak either Hebrew or English, so I called Yelena, who is a banker at our branch, and asked her to translate. Yelena turned to Mr. Igor, tried to ask him what he wanted to do, he didn't answer her, he looked, he was like, he looked like he didn't hear her or anything like that... There was a discussion and she asked what the client wanted to do. She wanted to hear from our client what he wanted to do, because when a client arrives with an escort, we want to know if he is competent, if he knows what he wants, if he is, what he needs, we just asked what he needs, we wanted to know because the grandson spoke on his behalf and he didn't answer. How many times did she turn to him and she tried to talk, and she said, please, I want to know what you want to do? We will give you. We'll do what you need but he didn't answer..." (p. 52 of the transcript, paras. 26-p. 53, s. 5).
Indeed, Ms. Horn confirmed that she does not speak Russian and was assisted by another banker in order to communicate with the plaintiff, and therefore cannot testify to the nature of the questions asked by the plaintiff. However, this can be learned from the interrogation of Mr. Vishnevsky, who testified that the plaintiff was asked by the banker "where he is, what address is here" (p. 14 of the transcript, para. 37).
In any event, I found Ms. Horn's main version, according to which there was no answer on the part of the plaintiff to the various questions that were asked, to be reliable.
It has not escaped my notice that the defendant did not bring additional witnesses to testify in support of his version of the impression of his representatives regarding the plaintiff's cognitive state at that time, but I did not find that this would undermine the defendant's version, which was supported by additional evidence and testimonies that I found reliable.
Mr. Vishnevsky himself described the plaintiff's response to the questions he was asked: "He (the plaintiff - R.A.) He took his hands on his head and said I don't understand what's going on here... I don't understand why, why this, this? Why, why is this happening and why do I have to ask, to answer these questions" (p. 15 of the transcript, paras. 1-3). This response allegedly testifies to the helplessness and frustration that the plaintiff felt at the time and turns on a "yellow light". Therefore, it is not possible to rule out the impression of the defendant's witnesses that the response stemmed from the plaintiff's lack of understanding of reality as it is.