Our client – the son of someone who recently completed a decades-long tenure as mayor, and who also previously served as a Knesset member – has filed a defamation lawsuit against a political opponent of his father. This opponent conducted a prolonged, intensive, and abusive campaign against the client on Facebook, attributing acts of corruption and embezzlement of public funds to him.
We argued before the court, on behalf of the client, that all the defendant's publications were fabrications, which were not supported by any evidence in any case, and that the defendant acted with extreme bad faith, among other reasons because he made the publications about the plaintiff without first verifying their content; the defendant argued, for his part, that the publications in question do not constitute defamation, and that – should it be determined that they do constitute defamation – he has the defenses of truth of publication and good faith.
The court accepted our version and claims, in their entirety, and rejected the defendant's version and all his claims. The defendant was ordered to pay our client compensation without proof of damages, plus court fees and attorney fees.
Judge Ronit Pinchuk Alt rules in her judgment: "The defendant testified that he desperately wanted the plaintiff's father to stop being the mayor. This desire is legitimate. What is not legitimate is dragging the family members of the candidate they do not desire, tarring and feathering them, and making them hated by those around them."; The court adds the following in continuation of the ruling: "The defendant presented no evidence supporting his serious claims against the plaintiff... I reject the defendant's claim that the things he published were true... The defendant did not attempt to verify the truth of any of his claims, but rather made these claims baseless. In light of the foregoing, I reject the defendant's claim that he is protected by the defense of good faith..."
This is not the first time we have compelled Mann Dehua to reach into his pocket due to defamatory remarks about the mayor's family. In a recent ruling, in another case we handled, another slanderer was ordered to pay tens of thousands of shekels in damages for publishing libel about family members, solely as a political weapon against their father.