Did the Mivathim pension fund intentionally mislead a family, in order to prevent it from withdrawing over one million two hundred thousand shekels that had been accumulated for the father's benefit? A ruling by the Regional Labor Court accepted the family's claims and ordered Mivathim to pay the family over 750 thousand shekels.
In the lawsuit, which Attorney Sharon Hamari filed on behalf of the family members against the Mivtachim Pension Fund, to the Tel Aviv Regional Labor Court, it is alleged, among other things, that the Mivtachim Pension Fund did not perform its duties properly.
The pension fund did not provide the family with information that it was obligated to disclose, and prevented the father and his family from cashing out the full amount of money he had accumulated during his years of work at the Aerospace Industries, totaling more than one million two hundred thousand shekels - in a single payment.
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The father, while still a full-time employee at the Israel Aerospace Industries, suffered a severe stroke at the age of 65, and has remained unconscious and on a ventilator ever since. His condition did not change until the day he died, about a year ago, at the age of 70.
The worker's wife has Parkinson's disease and is classified as a wheelchair-bound dementia patient. As a result, the couple's two adult children were appointed as guardians of their parents.
The brothers decided that, in light of the difficult health situation their parents were in, it would be better to provide them with private medical support at home. In order to ensure the care of their parents, the brothers requested to cash in the funds accumulated in the Mivathim pension fund for their father's benefit in a single payment, for a total of 1.2 million shekels.
The brothers were adamant that this method was preferable to the option of receiving the pension in the form of a monthly allowance.
After the sudden and difficult event happened to their father, the brothers met with a representative of the national organization of the Israel Aerospace Industries to inquire about their father's rights in the pension fund.
According to them, they viewed this representative as a representative of the 'Mitachim' pension fund and not as a representative of Israel Aerospace Industries, and therefore relied on the information he provided as if it had been provided to them by the 'Mitachim' pension fund.
As part of the lawsuit, Attorney Sharon Hamari claimed that throughout the process, the brothers returned to the Mivathim pension fund, requesting information, including a meeting with an actuary.
As the letters of claim show, despite the brothers' requests, Mivachim did not provide them with the information as required. It was also claimed that the brothers were not explained that signing the disability pension application forms would affect their desire to later withdraw the money in a single payment. On the contrary, they were told that they had enough time to make a decision and provide notice on the matter.
With regard to the disability benefit application documents, the Regional Labor Court accepted the arguments of Attorney Hamari and determined that, according to his impression, the fund, which is in charge of the process of confirming the plaintiff's eligibility for disability benefits, did not perform its duties properly.
According to the Labor Court, the foundation did not act properly when it did not verify that the signature was duly verified with the custodian, and it refrained from presenting to the custodian the full information that appears in the uniform regulations - two additional actions that it was supposed to perform.
As the letters of claim indicate, after the father's accumulated sick days from his workplace ended, the family was surprised to discover that a disability pension had been deposited into their father's bank account.
In light of this, one of the brothers immediately contacted the pension fund to request explanations as to why the disability pension was paid while they had been applying countless times to receive information and to arrange for their father's retirement by withdrawing the full amount in a single payment.
According to his testimony, he was told that his father had already received the first payment of the allowance, and no one would let him withdraw the money now, while the fund was in deficit.
Shocked by the answer, the brothers contacted the pension fund's public relations department, but there they were told, among other things, that since a disability pension was paid based on the documents they signed, it was not possible to claim a withdrawal of funds in a single payment.
In the lawsuit, the brothers claimed, among other things, that the Mvatachim Fund ignored their requests to hold a meeting, did not provide them with the information they requested, and did not give them any explanation of how to achieve what they wanted, in order to thwart them, to prevent them, in effect, from withdrawing the entire fund in one payment.
Following this conduct by the Mivatchim Pension Fund, the brothers turned to Attorney Hamari, who filed a lawsuit on their behalf with the Tel Aviv Regional Labor Court about four years ago, against the Mivatchim Pension Fund.
In the lawsuit, Attorney Hamari asked the Labor Court to determine that the Mivathim pension fund operated illegally, and that the documents signed by one of the brothers are invalid. The court was also asked to order Mivathim to release all funds in the pension fund in the father's name, and to immediately transfer them to his bank account.
The Mitzvachim Pension Fund argued, among other things, in its defense that the brother read the documents submitted to him for signature, including the application for a disability pension, before signing them, and that he was expected to know what he was signing.
Recently, the Tel Aviv Labor Court, headed by Judge Tomer Silora, and public representatives Amir Ofir and Haim Hopper, accepted the family's claims and ruled: "The foundation did not perform its role properly and did not fulfill its duty, when it did not ensure that signature verification was performed properly on the documents and did not present the brothers with full information.".
The Regional Labor Court further determined that it was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that, had the guardian been told, in real time, prior to submitting the application forms for payment of disability benefits, i.e., in a meeting with the representative of IAI, that granting disability benefits from the fund would necessarily result in a violation of the plaintiff's entitlement to withdraw the funds accumulated in his favor in the fund, in a lump sum, the guardian would have refrained from submitting these documents.
The ruling also determined that while the brothers worked tirelessly to obtain information about their father's rights, the Mitzvachim Pension Fund did not provide them with the full information, and thus failed to fulfill its obligation - the increased duty of disclosure.
In conclusion, the Labor Court accepted the claim and ordered the "Mitachim" pension fund to pay the family the remaining funds held in the fund's treasury in the name of the late father, in the amount of one million two hundred thousand shekels, plus interest and linkage, minus the funds received as a pension that have already been transferred to his account to date, every month.
The Mivathim pension fund was also charged legal costs of 15,000 shekels.
No appeal was filed against the verdict.
