Coffee Bar Worker Wins Compensation After Back Injury From Lifting Boxes

A Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court has ordered the owner of the Coffee Bar restaurant to pay a former employee about 360,000 shekels in compensation and legal expenses after he suffered a herniated disc while lifting heavy boxes. Judge Ariel Bergner found that the injury resulted from the business owner’s negligence.

The plaintiff began working for the company that operated Coffee Bar in 2009. About 10 years later, he said he was asked to handle a large delivery of boxes because of staff shortages. While lifting them, he felt a sharp pain in his spine, and doctors later diagnosed a herniated disc. He filed suit in June 2022 for roughly 650,000 shekels, arguing that his employer overloaded him, failed to train him properly, and did not provide protective equipment.

The restaurant owner denied liability. She said the boxes weighed far less than claimed, argued that the worker had overexerted himself on his own, and blamed a preexisting medical condition rather than the lifting incident. A neutral expert appointed in the case concluded that the box lifting triggered the herniated disc and caused a permanent 10 percent disability.

Bergner accepted that opinion and ruled that the employer breached her duty to provide a safe workplace and proper work methods. He rejected the claim of contributory negligence, writing that the worker was acting under pressure to help an employer short of staff, without clear safety instructions, and was doing an unusual task. The court awarded 270,000 shekels for damages including lost wages, help from others, and pain and suffering, plus court costs and 63,720 shekels in attorney fees. The sums will be added to about 28,000 shekels the worker already received from National Insurance after the incident was recognized as a workplace accident.