NIS 4 million payout over crippling fall from building

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
A 27-year-old Netanya man who was severely and permanently disabled when he fell from the roof of an abandoned building as a 12-year-old boy has been awarded NIS 4 million in compensation after his brother issued a lawsuit on his behalf, reports www.mynet.co.il. The city and the building's owners will pay the man NIS 2.1 million, with the remainder of the sum to come from the National Insurance Institute. According to the report, the accident occurred in April 1994, after the 12-year-old boy, his then-13-year-old brother and a number of neighborhood friends climbed up to catch pigeons on the roof of an abandoned building on Netanya's Rehov Dizengoff. The building was known as a haunt for drug dealers, and the city had warned the owners to fence it off and had issued a demolition order for it. The report said the boy tripped from the roof and fell some 10 meters down the building's stairwell, suffering severe head and other injuries. The National Insurance Institute has classified him as 100 percent permanently disabled. The report said the older brother issued the lawsuit on his behalf in the Tel Aviv District Court, and both sides were referred to arbitration. The elder brother said that while the money would make things easier, his brother was "alive but not alive" and would need to be looked after for the rest of his life.