In April 2020, in the middle of the first lockdown of the coronavirus pandemic, G. went out for a quick shopping trip to the neighborhood supermarket belonging to the 'Mahasnei Shuk' chain.
At the time, G. was working as a teacher at an elementary school in Jerusalem, giving workshops and dance classes.
Since the first lockdown procedures were the strictest, going to the neighborhood supermarket was considered one of the few permitted outings, and many preventive measures were introduced at the branch itself to ensure that customers were not infected.
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At the end of her shopping, holding two heavy, reusable baskets full of products, G. took a step back on her way out. She said that the tines of a forklift truck that had been placed on the floor in the aisle near the checkouts, without any supervision or marking, caused her to trip and fall hard on her back.
According to her, the forklift truck was parked unattended. No employee was present, and its two long tines were placed diagonally in a way that blocked the passage and created a real danger to those carrying bags, baskets, and packages. According to her testimony, immediately after she fell, an employee from the branch came over and helped her get up, but immediately moved away for fear of infection, as was customary at the time.
To her surprise, G. thought it was a normal injury, and returned home without reporting the incident to the management of the place. Later that evening, when the pain worsened, G. went to an emergency room in her area. She was referred for X-rays, which did not show a fracture or injury, and in fact did not reveal at the time that she was suffering from a torn shoulder, which was discovered in further tests several weeks later.
A few days after her fall, G. returned to the Machsanei Shoku supermarket to report the incident to the branch manager and request the security camera footage. She claims that the branch manager scolded her for not reporting it immediately and refused to give her the footage.
Instead, the branch manager asked her to come into his office and called an employee who had witnessed the incident. The employee was called, to the best of her recollection, "Abu Salah," and he confirmed her story.
After the employee confirmed the truth of the incident, the branch manager approached and drafted a notification form detailing G.'s version. When finished, the manager had her sign the form, but, she said, refused to give her a copy.
After leaving the meeting empty-handed, without a form and without the security footage, she looked around and, she said, noticed the same forklift, which she said was still parked unattended and at the same dangerous angle. She quickly took a photo of the forklift, a photo that she might use in the future.
Unfortunately, despite various treatments she underwent over the course of months, the pain did not go away, and from the time of the incident she began to suffer significant difficulties in her daily functioning.
Because of this, G. contacted the legal department of the "Market Warehouses" chain. In her testimony, she describes a very difficult conversation with an employee of the department, who, after the incident, was claimed by the company that she did not belong to the legal department but worked in accounting.
According to C, this employee called her on June 11, 2020, and asked her to describe the circumstances of the incident. Later in the conversation, the employee asked M. to send her medical documents, and even bluntly asked her - "How much money do you want?"'
Several months later, G. contacted her friend, who is a lawyer, and she tried to negotiate with the "Market Warehouses" chain to reach a financial settlement. Negotiations continued, and G. believed that the matter was being handled. Due to the pain and limitations, and the deterioration of her relationship with her husband, G. neglected the case for many months.
In September 2023, G. again contacted her lawyer friend, asking her how the negotiations with the network were progressing, and she told her that these negotiations had come to nothing, due to a complete lack of cooperation on the part of the network. The lawyer recommended that G. contact another lawyer who specializes in personal injury claims.
In her distress, G. turned to lawyer Itamar Ben Ami, who deals with the exercise of the rights of personal injury victims and tort law, who filed a lawsuit on her behalf, in February 2024, against the "Market Warehouse" chain, which manages the branch where the accident occurred.
The lawsuit claims that the branch left a dangerous forklift in a central passageway without supervision, fencing, or warning, thus placing its customers at clear risk.
'The Market Warehouse denied the accident and claimed that it never happened. They also claimed that after 4 years, security cameras cannot be recovered and that they do not have any accident report forms. They further added that the medical treatment given to J. was only days after the accident and it is impossible to prove the accident from it, and it is possible that the medical treatment was given following another injury, and in any case, they claim that the medical treatment did not show any physical injury, and that the entire incident did not occur and J. was not injured in the supermarket or alternatively is "attributing" her later injury to a minor incident that was not documented.
Later, when the case was scheduled for hearing evidence and questioning witnesses, G. filed an affidavit describing her condition. She said that since the incident, she has suffered significant impairment in her daily life. She has difficulty, in her work as a teacher, raising her arm, writing on the board, or performing basic movements.
Due to the limitations and pain, she already has difficulty teaching ballet or lifting objects, and simple tasks such as cleaning, dressing, and cooking have become challenging for her.
The Machsanei Shuk chain also submitted an affidavit on behalf of the branch manager, in which he claimed that almost five years have passed since the alleged date, and he does not remember the incident at all. According to him, none of the branch employees today remember the incident.
The only evidence he found of the incident, he testified, was an email from a customer who said she had fallen at the branch, about a month and a half after the alleged date. In response to the email, he testified, he asked her why she had not reported the accident immediately to the branch management, and she replied to his claim that "I couldn't.".
According to him, in the aforementioned email she mentioned the names of two cashiers, Fadi and Yazid, who she claimed had helped her, but who, he said, have not worked at the chain for years.
The branch manager emphasized in his affidavit that he did not conduct a thorough investigation into the incident. According to him, the form he filled out reflected only the plaintiff's words. In addition, no documentation of the conversations with the accounting department from that period was found, nor was the notification form located. The manager added in his affidavit that if C. did indeed reverse, as she testified, this may explain why she did not notice the forklift's teeth at all, and according to him, this was contributory negligence on her part.
The procedure was conducted under severe evidentiary difficulties: no photographic documentation of the incident was found, no witnesses were located, and J. did not contact the victim immediately after the incident and complain about it, and she did not receive initial medical treatment until a long time after the event, and even this treatment did not indicate actual physical injury, thus effectively cutting off the causal chain for the alleged injury.
Despite this, Attorney Ben Ami presented a clear medical opinion, continuous treatment documentation, and a consistent description of the limitations that G. suffers from, alongside evidence of her prior contacts with the branch, the legal department, and the attorney.
Ultimately, the parties resorted to negotiations and reached a compromise agreement, according to which the chain would compensate G. for 130,000 shekels, through the insurance company that insures her, without taking responsibility for the incident, and within the law.
The settlement agreement was submitted to the Bat Yam Magistrate's Court, which recently approved it and gave it the force of a judgment, while canceling the hearing scheduled for the investigation of the branch manager of the 'Mahasnei Shuk' chain.
