Caselaw

Civil Case (Center) 31842-09-22 Anonymous et al. v. Natan Meller et al. - part 10

August 25, 2026
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In this regard, I found that no special significance should be attributed to the failure to bring the drafter of the policy on behalf of Ayalon or the underwriter.  Indeed, Adv. Lichter clarified that she did not know on what basis or according to what definition the wording of the exception was: "I do not know what the drafter who sits a few floors above me me.  I do not know how to say" (p.  109 of the transcript) and indeed the signatory of Ayalon or the drafter of the exception was not brought to testify, but from the moment there is no definition of the term, we find that the objective-geological definition must be addressed, and therefore there is no real significance to bringing the underwriter.

Second, it is a well-known rule that the policy must be interpreted by examining all of its stipulations, and that they must be integrated with each other "while insisting on the entirety of the terms of the policy as one whole" (Civil Appeal 1446/22 , supra, para.  24; Civil Appeal 711/77 Kuli v.  Prudential Insurance Company Ltd., IsrSC 34 (4) 763 (1980)).

In the same policy, the term "sinkhole" appears once again, in Chapter 2 of the policy under "Building Insurance".  There insurance coverage is provided for the event of "sudden and unexpected collapse and/or collapse of buildings from massive construction, resulting from the movement of the land, the subsidence of the ground and the sudden and unexpected landslide.  It is hereby clarified that this coverage will not apply if the sinkhole and/or collapse and/or collapse was caused by the geological phenomenon known as a "sinkhole" or "crater".  (Emphasis and color change in the original - C.G.P.  - pp.  25-26 of the policy).

From this section we learn that according to Ayalon's own position, the meaning of the term "sinkhole" should be examined according to the geological definition (as opposed to a dictionary interpretation such as the version of Attorney Ayalon).  Once we have been brought with the geological position that we are not dealing with a sinkhole, Ayalon's interpretation of the "dictionary" interpretation should be rejected and it should be determined that the existence of the exception has not been proven.  In the chapter we are dealing with, the chapter on the qualifications, which appears after the chapter "Building Insurance", there is in fact a reference to the previous definition of the word "sinkhole" in the use of the word "institutes".

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