School, ministry ordered to pay NIS 10,000 over face injury

A 16-year-old boy's face was scarred by a ruler during a fight between him and another boy five years ago.

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
The Education Ministry and a Ra'anana elementary school have been ordered to pay NIS 10,000 compensation to a 16-year-old boy whose face was scarred by a ruler during a fight between him and another boy five years ago, reports the Hebrew weekly Ha'ir Ra'anana. The injured boy had sued the other boy, the school, the city and the ministry over the scar to his cheek, but a judge in the Kfar Saba magistrates' court ruled that only the school and the ministry should be held responsible for the incident. According to the report, the injury occurred after the two boys, then aged 11, remained unsupervised in their fifth-grade classroom at the Bartov elementary school during recess. The injured boy claimed the other boy had attacked him for no reason and had blocked his way when he tried to leave the classroom, cutting his cheek with the ruler in the process. The other boy claimed the two had been having a play fight with rulers when the injury occurred. In his lawsuit, the injured boy said he had been left with a scar that would not heal, and his mother told the court that the scar was making it difficult for the now 16-year-old boy to date. The judge said the scar was shallow, pale and small and could barely be seen except by a close inspection of the boy's face, but she decided that the school and the ministry should pay him NIS 10,000 in compensation.