In my work, we have often represented defendants in various financial claims. One of the steps that plaintiffs often take is imposing "restrictions" on defendants, or in legal parlance, "interim relief," which is intended to ensure the plaintiff's ability to receive the amount of his claim, should he prevail in his claim.
For example, liens are imposed on the defendants' property, various types of orders are imposed, and sometimes this is even done ex parte, that is, without the defendants having been given the opportunity to respond to that restriction.
Imposing temporary remedies, especially when this is done unilaterally, raises the concern that the defendant will not be able to claim the damage caused to him as a result of the imposition of the restriction if he wins the lawsuit.
For example, when it comes to a limited liability company (i.e., a company in which the liability of the shareholders is limited, and hence it is possible to claim damages caused by the company to a fairly limited extent), the fear that the defendant will not be able to receive the money he is owed increases significantly.
The potential damages to the defendant range across a wide spectrum of possibilities, from harm to the marketability of a property (for example, if I want to sell an apartment or take out a mortgage, I cannot do so because foreclosures have been imposed) to harm to the defendant's good name (which may also lead to immediate business damage).
Therefore, and so that defendants do not find themselves faced with a broken trough when various types of restrictions are imposed on them, they have at their disposal a number of legal tools that may protect them from harm to their property.
One of the tools we often use is imposing a bond on the plaintiff. As part of the request, the defendant asks the court to require the plaintiff to deposit a certain amount in the court's treasury, so that when the day comes, if he wins the trial, the defendant's expenses and damages will be paid to him, without the plaintiff being able to evade it.
And so it happened, one day new clients came to our office, who were being sued by a limited liability company in 5 different lawsuits (!), while imposing a number of restrictions on them. Due to the concern that our clients would not be able to recover their damages if they won, we filed a motion with the court to impose a bond on the plaintiff company. We asked the court that if the plaintiff did not post a bond amount that would insure our clients' damages, the lawsuit would be dismissed.
Indeed, in light of the fact that the company was unable to prove to the court that it had assets, meaning that it could pay our clients the money they were owed, the courts ruled in the various cases that if the plaintiff did not pay significant sums of money (which amounted to tens of thousands of shekels), her claims would be dismissed. In this way, we were able to secure the rights of our clients, and this was even before the court was called upon to hear the lawsuit on the merits.
This is one example of many tools available to the defendant to protect himself from frivolous lawsuits or from plaintiffs who will not be able to pay if they lose. It is important to note that this is a tool that can be used from an early stage of the hearing, even before the defendant has filed a defense. In other words, even if the defendant is not sure that he has a strong "case", he can protect himself using the tool of imposing bail, even before he has presented his version to the court.
Additional tools for dealing with claims will be published in further articles.
more Ruth Spitzer, fromWolfson Weinstein & Co.', specializes in the fields of law Commercial Civil, Insolvency and litigation.
Join the Haredim 10 Facebook page >>
Join the X page of Haredim 10 >>
Want more news, videos and stories? Join the Haredim 10 WhatsApp channel >>
