Background
Sason Ozer and Pesach Zaks, recipients of disability-related mobility allowances under an agreement between Israel’s National Insurance Institute and the State, filed four applications to certify class actions. They sought adjustments to the allowances based respectively on changes in fuel prices, the national average wage, vehicle-insurance premiums, and the dollar exchange rate.
The Regional Labor Court rejected each application. It held that the claims did not fall within any category authorized by the Second Schedule to the Class Actions Law, 2006: the applicants had not established discrimination under Item 7; the disability-equality provisions covered by Item 9(1) did not concern payment of benefits; and Item 11 covered recovery of money unlawfully collected by a public authority, not revision of a benefit-adjustment mechanism. The court also found no prima facie evidentiary basis showing that the allowances had been calculated incorrectly. The National Labor Court consolidated and dismissed the four appeals on June 9, 2026, after concluding that the applicants had neither answered those threshold holdings nor supplied legal authority showing error.
The petitioners then asked the High Court of Justice to set aside that judgment. They argued that the statutory categories should be interpreted broadly, that under-adjustment of the allowance effectively forced recipients to make an unlawful compulsory payment from their own pockets, and that the labor courts should have permitted amendment instead of dismissal. They also challenged the evidentiary burden, consolidation of the appeals, and the allegedly disproportionate costs award.
The Court’s Holding
The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice David Mintz, dismissed the petition. It reiterated that the High Court of Justice does not sit as an appellate court over the National Labor Court and will intervene only in exceptional cases involving a material error on a principled issue where intervention is also necessary to achieve justice.
The Court acknowledged that this nonintervention rule applies somewhat less strictly when class-action issues are involved. Even so, the case did not warrant review. Although the petitioners portrayed the dispute as raising broad questions about how a public authority calculates financial rights for a large population, their principal arguments concerned the application of the Second Schedule’s specific categories to their certification applications and the calculation of their own allowances under the mobility agreement.
Those issues involved application of existing law to the particular claims. The petitioners identified neither a material error on a principled question nor an injustice requiring the Supreme Court’s intervention. The petition was therefore dismissed.
Key Takeaways
- A proposed class action in Israel must fit within a category expressly listed in the Second Schedule to the Class Actions Law.
- A claim seeking adjustment of a public benefit is not, without more, a claim to recover money unlawfully collected by a public authority.
- The Supreme Court’s restraint in reviewing National Labor Court judgments is somewhat relaxed in class-action matters, but intervention still requires a material principled error and a need to achieve justice.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the jurisdictional limits on Israeli class actions, including claims brought on behalf of people with disabilities against public authorities. A broad public impact does not itself bring a benefits dispute within the statutory class-action categories.
It also confirms that characterizing a fact-specific dispute as a systemic challenge will not secure High Court review of a National Labor Court judgment unless the petition demonstrates a material error on a genuinely principled issue and shows that intervention is required in the interests of justice.