Over the past week, the State of Israel has been ordered to pay two hefty sums in damages: 937,000 shekels ($243,000) to a boy who lost an eye when playing after he was sent out of class, and 750,000 shekels ($195,000) to another boy whose parents' request for an abortion was rejected, and is now extremely short.
Both cases were adjudicated in the Haifa District Court.
The first case occurred in Kiryat Bialik in 2001. Several 5th-grade youths had been sent out of class for failing to do their homework, and in an ensuing game with a pencil case zipper handle, one of the boys lost an eye; he is now considered to be 30% handicapped.
Judge Yael Wilner ruled that the teacher and principal - who happened to see the boys just minutes before the injury occurred, yet did not ensure that they were supervised - had violated their contractual obligations with the parents to provide supervision to their children. The judge noted that the Education Ministry guidelines say that children must not be left on their own for more than a "short period." She further noted that the school itself forbids sending children out of class "for any reason."
Judge Wilner therefore ordered the State to pay 937,000 shekels - 15,000 shekels to the boy's parents to cover expenses, and the remainder to be placed in the boy's account that will remain closed until he turns 18.
In the second case, presided over by Haifa District Court Chief Justice Bilhah Gil'or, the State was ordered to pay three-quarters of a million shekels to parents whose request for an abortion over 13 years ago was turned down.
The case involves a boy who is diagnosed with having a type of dwarfism and will not grow more than five feet tall. An ultrasound test on the 21.5-week-old fetus displayed early signs of the condition, yet an internal committee at Assaf HaRofeh Hospital near Tel Aviv rejected the parents' request for an abortion.
In a detailed ruling reviewing the hospital's complicated decision process, Judge Gil'or acknowledges that the decision to refuse the abortion was itself a reasonable one: "Hypocondroplasia [the boy's condition] is not in itself a reason to stop a pregnancy in its late stages, and the test of medical decisions is not one for second-guessers, but for the average doctor on the spot."
"However," Judge Wilner concluded, "the fact that a decision was reasonable cannot certify a faulty and problem-ridden decision-making process. In tort law, the significance of a decision that was made in a faulty manner and that caused damage is that the injured party must be compensated, in order that corrective justice be served and in order to deter potential damagers. Otherwise, what significance is there to the obligation of caution that the defendant has towards the plaintiff and his parents?"