After 24 Years, Court Rules Back Pain Was Caused by IDF Injury

A long and stubborn battle by a 45-year-old man who injured his back during military service recently ended in a victory at the Haifa District Court. Judges Israela Krai-Giron, Adi Chen-Barak and Yoav Friedman ruled that the injury was the cause of the back pain he suffers from. They overturned previous decisions that had denied a link between the pain and military service, or recognized only partial aggravation.

The appellant was drafted into the IDF in 2001. He first served as an aircraft mechanic and later as a mechanic in a rescue unit. In February 2002, he was injured after being sent with another soldier to dismantle heavy containers containing toxic materials and then reassemble them. At one point, while lifting one of them, he suffered serious back injury.

He was diagnosed with a herniated disc and was forced to undergo a lengthy rehabilitation process, including physical therapy. His military profile was gradually lowered from 97 to 45, and eventually to 22 when he was discharged from the IDF.

In September last year, the Appeals Committee under the Disabled Soldiers (Pensions and Rehabilitation) Law recognized only aggravation, at a rate of 75%, between the IDF incident and the pain. The committee chair wrote then: "The fact that the appellant did not complain of any medical problem, including in the lumbar spine, during his first year of service, and the fact that lower back pain struck him immediately after the incident and with great intensity, requiring prolonged medical treatment on the other hand, establishes the conclusion that there is a causal link between the incident and the herniated disc."

However, she qualified that and noted that "from the evidence it emerged that from 1997 to 1999 the appellant had complaints of lower back pain." She concluded that these could not be ignored because they indicated "a degenerative wear-and-tear process in the lumbar spine, which began to develop in the appellant before enlistment."

He refused to accept the ruling and insisted, in the appeal he filed with the district court through attorney Yaakov Amir, that full causation should be recognized, not merely aggravation. In his view, the committee erred by not adopting the conclusions of the expert it appointed, who found that the relationship was one of causation. If he had indeed had a degenerative back problem, he argued, he could not have served for a full year under heavy loads until the container-lifting incident.

By contrast, the Compensation Officer in the Defense Ministry, through attorney Nofer Litman, argued that there was no legal error in the ruling, certainly not one so significant as to justify appellate intervention.

Despite that position, at a certain stage the Defense Ministry representative relented, and the sides reached a settlement under which the appellant's main argument would be accepted, namely that the case involved causation and not only aggravation.

"In light of the parties' agreement," the district judges wrote in their ruling, "we order that the appeal be accepted, and we order that there is a full causal link of causation between the back pain suffered by the appellant and the incident that is the subject of the lower court ruling, which occurred during his military service."

• To read the full ruling, click here • This article is in cooperation with the Israeli legal website Psakdin • Counsel for the appellant: Attorney Yaakov Amir • Counsel for the respondent: Attorney Nofer Litman • Ynet is a partner on the Psakdin website