Supreme Court Rejects Lawyer's Claim for Work Accident Benefits

Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit has dismissed an appeal by attorney Yogev Halfon, who sought to have his injury sustained while riding an electric scooter recognized as a work accident. Halfon's claim was previously rejected by both the Regional Labor Court in Tel Aviv and the National Labor Court.

The incident occurred in Tel Aviv in December 2021. Halfon claimed he was riding the scooter to the District Court to hand-deliver a motion. He stated his intention was to stop at a stationery store to buy "tabs" for the motion and to get coffee before reaching the court. The National Insurance Institute denied his claim, and Halfon subsequently filed a lawsuit.

The Regional Labor Court found Halfon's account unreliable and inconsistent, ruling that he failed to meet the heightened burden of proof required to establish that his journey was work-related. The court noted his failure to provide any objective evidence, including a copy of the motion he claimed to be filing. The court also determined that even if his trip to the court was proven, the detour to buy tabs was not work-related and represented a significant deviation, as closer stationery stores existed to both his home and the court.

Halfon appealed to the National Labor Court, reiterating his arguments and also protesting the replacement of a public representative on the regional court panel, whom he accused of rubber-stamping decisions without hearing testimony. The National Labor Court rejected the appeal, upholding the regional court's factual findings and stating that the issue of the public representative's replacement was addressed after the deadline for objection and was rectified by the subsequent appointment.

In his petition to the Supreme Court, Halfon sought to overturn the ruling, citing the "truncated and irregular panel." However, Amit ruled that this was not an exceptional case warranting Supreme Court intervention. He addressed Halfon's argument about the public representative's replacement, stating that the issue had been resolved in 1998 and that Halfon's claim of being denied the right to argue was inconsistent with the proceedings. Amit also noted that Halfon's objection to the new panel was raised only in the appeal to the National Labor Court, thus negating claims of injustice. While Amit commented that the appointment decision should have been made by the full panel and with reasoning, he concluded that the new representative signing the ruling after his appointment did not constitute a substantive legal error justifying Supreme Court intervention. Justices Dafna Barak-Erez and Alex Stein concurred with Amit's decision.