A while back someone filed a request for a class action suit against McDonalds in Israel to the tune of 63 million shekels. The fellow's claim was that he had ordered a kosher l'pesach meal, I guess on Pesach, and was shocked to discover that they also sell waffles with ice cream that is chametz. He felt deceived and wanted to file a class action suit.

The fellow claimed that by ordering a kosher l'pesach meal he was led to believe that all the food sold in that not-kosher branch of McDonalds would be kosher and appropriate for Pesach. By creating a special menu for Pesach, the impression was that it is kosher for pesach, and if they are selling chametz, they should say so explicitly ont he menu. Without such a statement he claimed, they are deceiving the customer.

McDonalds claimed in response that they never used the word "kosher" and the special menu items for Pesach indicate nothing regarding other items on the menu.

In January the District Court of Tel Aviv rejected his petition and ordered the petitioner to pay court costs, to the tune of 40,000nis. The court explained its logic that any reasonable person going into a not-kosher restaurant would not expect the food to be kosher for Pesach, and there is no need for the restaurant to explicitly state that that is the case.

The customer petitioned the Supreme Court to be allowed to file a class action suit, and the Supreme Court has now rejected his petition as well, though without obligating him in court costs.
source: Hamechadesh

What is a McDonalds Pesach meal - a cheeseburger on matza? Did he think the cheeseburgers on the menu were kosher or just that the matza kashered everything else?

Many people who are not religious still do cultural things and even if they dont keep everything about Pesach, they might eat matza on Pesach or find other ways to incorporate some aspect of Pesach into their lives for those 7 days. Going to a treif restaurant but ordering a Pesach meal is a perfect example of that. If this fellow is shocked by chametz on pesach, perhaps he should be eating in a kosher restaurant - even if just for the week of Pesach. McDonalds does have kosher branches..

I do wonder about the law against selling chametz on Pesach in public. Does McDonalds just flaunt the law? Do they get fined? Maybe they are willing to absorb the fine as a cost of doing business. This fellow should have reported the restaurant to the authorities for breakign the chametz law rather than file a stupid lawsuit.

I found this type of a lawsuit (in beis din) to be pointless last time it came up, and I find this edition of it to be pointless as well.

Nearly a year ago a din torah was brought against MK Moshe Gafni of UTJ for his role in UTJ's allowing  the Disengagement to happen. I don't know what came of that lawsuit, but I doubt it was successful.

Now, in the same beis din no less, Aryeh Deri is being sued for having supported the Oslo agreements, and the terror that resulted from it.

According to INN, Geulah Hershkowitz, whose husband and son died in terrorist attacks, has filed suit in beis din against Aryeh Deri for his role in the Oslo Agreements. The basis for the suit is that her husband and son, who were killed 3 months apart in separate terror attacks, were killed with weapons that the terrorists had been given by the Israeli government as part of the Oslo Accords.

The beis din has authorized a summons to Aryeh Deri to appear in a week before the court. They also instructed Hershkowitz that she must bring witnesses and proof that the defendant, Aryeh Deri, was really one of the people behind the formulation of the Oslo Accords, as well as to bring proof that her husband and son were killed as a direct result of Oslo..

What is Hershkowitz suing for? According to INN, she is suing to declare Deri's responsibility for the results of Oslo, which includes the deaths of more than 1500 Israelis, and the injuries of more than 14,000 people who remain permanently handicapped from the terror attacks, and more specifically to prohibit the defendant, Aryeh Deri, from ever serving again in the capacity of MK or other position in the government of Israel.

September 9th in the evening is the big day when the beis din will be weighing the evidence brought before it.

I don't see how Mrs. Hershkowitz will possibly be able to bring such proof, let alone within a week. It seems to me, as it did when Gafni was sued, to be very problematic to sue any one government minister or representative for responsibility for decisions made and taken by the entire government.

The letter from the beis din can be seen here:

Sometimes Hebrew websites translate and rewrite their Hebrew articles for the English pages. Other times it just seems like they pumped the Hebrew article through translation software, like Google Translate, and never reviewed and edited it. It is surprising when it is a paper as serious and respectable as Globes.

Globes has a piece about a 220 million NIS class-action lawsuit against Strauss because their chocolate pudding does not really have chocolate in it. The claimant says that using the word "chocolate" in the name of the product is misleading. Whatever it has inside it, it seems to not qualify as "chocolate" under the official chocolate standards. The claimant is upset despite the fact that the label says it is chocolate flavored (and this is where it looks like the article was pumped through Google Translate, as they twice translated "b'taam shocolad" as "chocolate tasting" instead of "chocolate flavored"), because the name of the product itself makes it seem like this is a unique chocolate product.

I don't know if this guy will win, or even be allowed to file his suit (after all, it does specify that it is "b'taam shocolad" which does not really leave much to the imagination).. it does seem a bit frivolous to me, as the guy was not really harmed or damaged by the lack of official standard chocolate.

However, it does seem very wrong to me to be tampering with chocolate! a definite no-no!



------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

This story is just great.

A woman got walking directions for a trip from Google Maps. As she followed the directions, she ended up in the middle of a highway, when she was hit by a car. She is suing the driver of the car that hit her, along with Google for bad directions that put her in danger.

Is Google responsible for giving out bad directions through its Google Maps service? We’re about to find out. After Googling walking directions for a trip in Park City, Utah, Lauren Rosenberg claims she was led onto a busy highway, where she was struck by a vehicle. She’s now suing Google for damages.
[...]
Rosenberg used Google Maps on January 19, 2009, via her Blackberry, to get directions between 96 Daly Street, Park City, Utah and 1710 Prospector Avenue, Park City, Utah. Google provided these, telling her as part of the route to walk for about 1/2 mile along the calm-sounding “Deer Valley Drive.” That’s an alternative name for that section of Utah State Route 224, a highway that lacks sidewalks, the case says. Rosenberg wasn’t warned about this, putting Google directly at fault in the accident.

Does Google really need to tell people to look both ways before they cross the street? Is that how reliant on Google people have become - they just turn off their brains and follow directions?

There is a common type of posting that elicits excitement and interest among readers. That woudl be the "Only in Israel" post. Today I offer you the "Only in America" post. Actually, it is not really "only in America" but is more like "not in Israel".

Ever fly El Al (or probably most other airlines)? Ever get stuck sitting in a bad seat?

You know the type:

• the seat near the bathrooms.. that seat sitter has to suffer much of the flight with bad odors, crowds of people waiting for the bathroom, if it is a flight with a lot of religious people maybe the davening is happening right next to him, etc.
• the seat near a bunch of kids - they make a lot of noise, get antsy, fight at any of numerous times during the flight, spill their food, etc.
• seat near the front of each section called the bulkhead. This might be the worst of all the bad seats as you have to contend with nursing mothers, babies crying in the middle of the night waking everyone around them up, baby toys all over the place, dirty and smelly diapers, and lots of other disturbances as harried parents try to find ways to keep the little ones occupied and entertained for, what seems to them to be, the longest day in the history of the world.

Ever consider suing the airline if you were assigned a seat in one of those "danger zones"?

Well, somebody did. Somebody sued El Al for exactly that.

A guy flying to Berlin on El Al checked in requesting a window seat, far from the bathrooms and from the noisy areas.

He ended up being seated right in the bulkhead section - yep, next to all those screaming babies. He had a very uncomfortable flight, and decided to sue.

The airline responded that they guarantee no specific seats and seating is based on the ticket purchased.

The courts ruled that the airline is not at fault. The judge said that the defendant has no right to claim that the airline should not fly the children or to place them only in a designated area far away from other adults. The judge also said that not every discomfort or dissatisfaction with a service is worthy of a day in court, while every person has a right to seek compensation in court, others have a right not to be disturbed by unnecessary and frivolous lawsuits.

The judge rejected his claim against El Al and required him to pay the airline 750 NIS for court costs.

Had this person sued in the US, there is a better chance he might have gotten some sort of compensation. In the US there is a culture of suing for the slightest discomfort, and what the Israeli judge called a frivolous lawsuit, may very well be a winner in the US. Think back to the person who spilled a hot cup of coffee on herself while driving and sued because the coffee was too hot. And won.

I wonder though, had he won the case in Israel, would I have been able to sue after traveling with my kids and being seated near them?

So the courts said that these types of lawsuits are still not going to be happening in Israel anytime soon, despite people trying to bring that culture to Israel.