| Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court |
| Civil Case 5038-06-21 Cohen et al. v. Gottlieb et al.
Exterior Case: |
| Before | The Honorable Judge Nachum Sternlicht
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| On the matter:-David Cohen–
-By Attorney Zion Bahloul – Plaintiff and Counter-Defendant – Against – -Tali Gottlieb- —-The Defendant and the Counter-Plaintiff
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Judgment
- General and deliberative background:
The plaintiff and the counter-defend[1]ant (hereinafter - the plaintiff) served as a taxi driver at the relevant times of the claim. As part of his work, in coordination with the Givat Shmuel Municipality, he transported children with special needs to educational institutions.
- The defendant and the counter-plaintiff (hereinafter - The Defendant) is the mother of a child with special needs (hereinafter - The defendant's daughter).
- On October 25, 2019, the plaintiff drove the defendant's daughter from the educational institution to her home. Near the defendant's home, an argument developed between the plaintiff and the defendant, who was waiting near her home for the defendant's daughter's arrival from the educational framework, against the background of a dispute regarding the presence of food in the defendant's daughter's house during the trip.
- Shortly after that incident, the defendant published a post on the Facebook website (hereinafter - First Post), in which she called the plaintiff derogatory names, "son of a bitch" and "zero", while claiming that the plaintiff shouted at the defendant and the defendant's daughter. He shouted that the defendant's daughter would not eat in his taxi, despite the fact that the defendant's daughter was on the autistic spectrum, and while the defendant asked him to stop shouting in view of the negative effects of these shouting on the defendant's daughter. In the first post, the defendant also described the plaintiff as someone who compared the economic feasibility of the trip and the value of the taxi with the dirt caused by the defendant's daughter, and also threatened that if she ate during the trip, the plaintiff would drop her off halfway.
The first post included a photograph of the back of the plaintiff's taxi, in such a way that the same photograph can be distinguished in its rear license number. The first post was also published on a Facebook page called "Tweeting Statuses" as well as on another page by journalist Sivan Cohen. There, the first post was edited, and the derogatory names were censored.
- On November 2, 2019, a few days after the first post was published, the defendant published another post in connection with the same incident (hereinafter - The second post). In the second post, the defendant claimed that the first post was removed after the plaintiff "whined" to Facebook.
- As part of the main lawsuit, the plaintiff petitioned to obligate the defendant to pay compensation in the amount of ILS 250,000.
- The defendant filed a counterclaim against the plaintiff, in which she petitioned to oblige the plaintiff to pay compensation in the amount of ILS 80,000 for that incident.
- Summary of the plaintiff's arguments:
The defendant's daughter was driven by the plaintiff three times. During a trip in October 2019, the daughter spilled the contents of her bag, which contained sweets and chocolate, into the back seat of the taxi. She even smeared some of the candy on the back seat of the taxi. The plaintiff did not compensate here, in light of the fact that she was an autistic girl, and after the trip, the plaintiff cleaned the taxi thoroughly and at the expense of his work time.