Background
Shiri Investments, a vehicle sales and leasing company, transferred possession of a Skoda Octavia to Asma Sultan in late 2018 but remained its registered owner. Shiri asserted that the transaction was governed by a written leasing agreement requiring total payments of NIS 80,400, including a final payment in exchange for transferring title. Sultan maintained that the parties had instead made an oral sale agreement for NIS 59,405 and that her purported signature on the written leasing agreement was forged.
The parties agreed that Sultan had paid Shiri NIS 59,405, but disputed what those payments covered. Shiri attributed them to a separate transaction involving a Fiat Ducato and claimed approximately NIS 75,000 remained due on the Skoda agreement. Sultan sued for a declaration that she was entitled to title and for NIS 11,000 in damages; Shiri counterclaimed for NIS 75,000. The Magistrates’ Court accepted Shiri’s account, dismissed Sultan’s claim, and granted the counterclaim, requiring Sultan to pay NIS 75,000 in exchange for title.
The Tel Aviv–Jaffa District Court allowed Sultan’s appeal. It held that Shiri bore the burden of authenticating the written agreement after Sultan denied her signature and had failed to meet that burden. It also found that Sultan had not proved the alleged oral sale, but concluded that the undisputed NIS 59,405 in payments related to the Skoda rather than the Ducato. The District Court ordered Sultan’s NIS 15,000 appellate deposit, with accrued returns, transferred to Shiri as the remaining consideration and directed Shiri to transfer title to Sultan within 15 days after receiving it.
The Court’s Holding
The Supreme Court denied Shiri’s application for permission to bring a third-instance appeal, without requesting Sultan’s response. Justice Yechiel Kasher held that the case presented no legal question of general importance and that Shiri had not shown a miscarriage of justice—the exceptional grounds required for third-instance review.
The Court agreed with the District Court’s allocation of the burden of proof. When a party denies that a signature on a document is hers, the party relying on that document must prove its authenticity. Because Shiri based its counterclaim on the written leasing agreement and Sultan denied signing it, the burden properly rested on Shiri.
The Court acknowledged that some of Shiri’s factual arguments were not baseless and that portions might conceivably reveal error, without deciding that any error occurred. But an appellate court’s intervention in a trial court’s factual findings does not itself justify third-instance review. Even a potentially erroneous factual determination falls far short of a miscarriage of justice unless it reflects an exceptionally grave procedural defect or a rare, conspicuous, and intolerable error. No costs were awarded because no response had been requested.
Key Takeaways
- An application for permission to appeal in a third instance will ordinarily be denied unless it raises a legal issue extending beyond the parties or demonstrates a genuine miscarriage of justice.
- When a litigant denies her own signature on a contract, the party relying on that contract bears the burden of proving its authenticity.
- A District Court’s reversal of a Magistrates’ Court’s factual findings does not, without more, justify Supreme Court review in a third instance.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the distinction between ordinary appellate error and the much narrower concept of a miscarriage of justice. A party does not obtain a further appeal merely by identifying a plausible factual mistake or labeling the lower court’s result unjust.
It also confirms a practically important evidentiary rule for contract litigation: a claimant seeking to enforce a document cannot shift the burden of authenticating a disputed signature to the person who denies signing it.