It follows that the Labor Court has the authority to award compensation without proof of damage to an employee where pay slips were given late, knowingly.
- In our case, it has not been proven that the coupons were not knowingly delivered on time. The defendant is correct that three of the coupons that the plaintiff pointed out are from 2021, the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pay slip for October 2018 was allegedly delivered two days late, and the pay slip for January 2019 was allegedly delivered only one day late. The plaintiff worked for the defendant for many years, and pointed to only five pay slips that were delivered to him, according to him, with a very slight delay. The plaintiff did not claim that he suffered damage as a result of the delay in delivering the slips, except for a general claim of mental anguish (page 3, lines 2-11), and he does not even make any claim regarding their contents.
- In these circumstances, this is a negligible delay that the plaintiff appears to have turned into a stump to dig into, and there is no reason to award monetary compensation for it. The claim in this context is dismissed.
Compensation for Unlawful Dismissal
- According to the plaintiff, he was dismissed unlawfully, in bad faith and for extraneous motives, after he was wrongfully suspected of collaborating with the manager of the business that competed with the defendant. Although the plaintiff received requests to assist Mr. Bazara, he refused to assist him as long as he worked for the defendant. The hearing process was fictitious and its results were known in advance. The defendant did not present the plaintiff with documents supporting the suspicions against him prior to the hearing. The plaintiff did not agree to restrict in advance the possibility of working for other companies after he finished his employment with the defendant. The plaintiff is not a manager or a senior employee and there was no reason to demand restrictions from him.
According to the defendant, the plaintiff was lawfully dismissed after he refused to cooperate with her in his work, and remained loyal to the previous manager who became a competitor. The plaintiff was a veteran employee and had accumulated a great deal of knowledge about the management of the business, which he refused to share with his superiors. The plaintiff was observed to visit the new business opened by Mr. Bazara in the place where the defendant was forced to vacate. The defendant received complaints from agents who worked with her, according to which the plaintiff did not cooperate and did not assist them as required of his work. The defendant was willing to continue employing the plaintiff subject to a narrow undertaking on his part to refrain from moving to a competing company for 3 months, which indicates that she did not intend to fire him in advance.
- The plaintiff did not prove damages caused to him as a result of the dismissal, although in his claim (paragraphs 38-39) he claimed in general that following his dismissal he ceased his obligations for dental treatment and had difficulty financing medical expenses. His claim in this context remained without proof of damage.
- After considering the arguments of the parties and the evidence, we found that the plaintiff was right in that there were flaws in the dismissal proceedings, and these are our reasons:
- The plaintiff was fired on suspicion that he had assisted a business that competed with the defendant, under the management of the defendant's former manager, with whom he maintained friendly relations. No documents were attached to the plaintiff's invitation to the hearing in support of this claim. Attached to the defendant's manager's affidavit were various correspondence (Appendices 2-5) between the defendant's CEO and various parties regarding the suspicions attributed to the plaintiff. None of the aforementioned parties were brought to testify in order to prove the suspicions or the defendant's state of mind when she considered dismissing the plaintiff.
- The plaintiff confirmed that he had come to the competing business, but explained that the purpose of the visit was to meet his friends, regardless of the businesses that were conducted there (page 13, line 38 - page 14, line 2). He also testified that he remained loyal to his place of work at the defendant, even though he received "disgraceful" treatment, as he put it, from his superiors and his co-workers (page 22, lines 30-33). On the other hand, the defendant presented only suspicions, without evidence, as testified by the defendant's CEO himself (page 19, lines 1-3).
- No evidence was presented regarding previous conversations that the defendant had with the plaintiff, prior to the hearing, in which he was asked to improve cooperation in the framework of the work. This was despite the fact that the defendant's CEO testified that he had many conversations with him (page 16, lines 29-33). The grounds detailed in the invitation given to the plaintiff for the hearing did not even mention the plaintiff's lack of cooperation, which the defendant claimed in the legal proceeding, but rather the suspicion that he was only assisting a competing business. In this context, it should be noted that the plaintiff was absent from work due to illness for a significant part of the period of the months preceding his summons to the hearing, April to July 2021, including that he was not at work at all in June 2021.
- Mr. Shaked testified, and his testimony is reliable to us, that when he began his work for the defendant, as a new manager without any experience in the field, he felt that "the power was with him" (page 15, line 29). The evidence shows that the plaintiff, who was a very veteran and experienced employee and had a great deal of knowledge in his hands, did not rush to assist the defendant with the change of ownership of the place and the departure of the manager with whom he had been friends for years. However, this does not necessarily mean that the plaintiff breached the duty of loyalty imposed on him, took the defendant's secrets and transferred them to competitors, as the defendant suspected.
- The plaintiff was dismissed after a lawful hearing, and after the defendant offered him, as asaid, to continue his work in exchange for signing an agreement not to move to work in Mr. Bazara's competing business for 3 months after the termination of his employment with the defendant. In these circumstances, the plaintiff proved that there were defects in his dismissal proceedings, but these were not defects of the high standard. In light of the plaintiff's long period of employment, on the one hand, and on the other hand, in light of the nature of the defects, as aforesaid, and the failure to prove pecuniary damage, the defendant will compensate the plaintiff with compensation in the sum of ILS 15,000 for the defects in the dismissal proceedings.
Conclusion
- The claim is dismissed, except that the defendant will pay the plaintiff compensation in the sum of ILS 15,000 for defects in the dismissal proceedings, together with the lawful shekel interest from the date of filing the claim, February 12,2024.
- In the circumstances of the case, in which the claim was mostly dismissed, and in light of the original amount of the claim and the various components that the plaintiff chose to sue without basis, the plaintiff will bear the defendant's attorney's fees in the sum of ILS 4,000 together with shekel interest in accordance with the law. The amounts are deductible.
Given today, November 1,2026, in the absence of the parties and will be sent to them.
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