Needless to say, no document of any kind was presented to support the defendant's claim regarding damage to the first order - not from the appraiser, not from the insurance company, not from the port, not from the customs broker who claimed to have informed him of the damage, or from any other party. Similarly, no document was presented indicating the 'new order' that the defendant claimed.
In his cross-examination, the defendant claimed that he was conducting a lawsuit against the port, but no reference to this was also presented (pp. 19 Q1-4).
- From the correspondence that continued between the parties, it appears that the defendant claimed that he had made a new order and even acted to make another order for a certain completion in the pergola - an order whose preparation was delayed by various claims by the defendant for weeks. No reference was presented for this additional order either.
- On January 5, 2022, the defendant announced that the shipment had already arrived in Israel on January 3, 2022, but was not released due to a 'paperwork' problem. A few days later, he wrote that the shipment had been released and that he was supposed to receive it. This did not happen and no explanation was given in the correspondence as to where the shipment 'disappeared'.
Here, too, no reference was attached to the defendant's claims, and in his cross-examination he suddenly came up with a new version, according to which he believed that the manufacturer 'understood' that a new system needed to be prepared, and only when he opened the shipment in January 2022 did he discover to his surprise that the plaintiffs' system was not there, and therefore he contacted the manufacturer again and in fact sent the order only in January 2022 (pp. 19, 24-26).
- The parties again continued to correspond in vain, towards the end of January 2022 there was already explicit talk of some kind of 'compensation', and the defendant even announced that the order for the addition had been issued and even sent a simulation of the long-awaited pergola.
- On March 1, 2022, the defendant announced that March 21, 2022 would be a "holiday day", and to the plaintiff's question as to whether the intention was that the installation would be carried out on that date, the defendant replied, "God forbid he will come, and you are the first, of course!!". As stated, this did not happen, and on March 27, 2022, the defendant announced that he was "still waiting, but he left, thank God!!" (emphasis added).
In paragraph 14 of his affidavit, the plaintiff changed his version and claimed that "during the month of March 2022, the Spanish manufacturer was asked to manufacture the systems for the plaintiffs."