Background
The underlying action concerns a coastal parcel in Netanya that the applicant’s late grandfather and his business partner, later Netanya’s mayor, had owned equally. In 1965, the grandfather’s heirs transferred their rights to the Netanya Municipality under a sale agreement. The parcel was initially designated for public use, redesignated for private commercial use in 1974, sold to a commercial company in 2010, and is now the site of a major construction project.
The applicant sued the municipality, alleging that the 1965 agreement was made under coercion and the threat of expropriation and therefore should be treated substantively as an expropriation. She contends that the later change in land use gave her, as an heir of the original owners, a repurchase right under § 195(2) of the Planning and Building Law, 5725-1965, and that violation of that right entitles her to compensation.
After the parties submitted their evidence, the Central District Court set November 11, 2025, as the deadline for applications to summon additional witnesses. In February 2026, shortly before the evidentiary hearing, the applicant sought to summon two witnesses who had declined to provide affidavits: the liquidator of the development company’s parent company and a person who acquired the development company in a 2007 liquidation proceeding. The District Court denied the request as late, unsupported by an affidavit, and insufficiently justified, particularly because the proposed witnesses’ connections to the company arose long after the events at issue.
The Court’s Holding
Justice Gila Canfy-Steinitz denied leave to appeal without requesting a response. The Court characterized the witness-summons ruling as a quintessential procedural decision lying at the core of the trial court’s discretion and found no basis for appellate intervention.
Under Regulation 62 of the Civil Procedure Regulations, 5779-2018, parties must submit witness lists before the first pretrial conference, and a witness omitted from the list may be summoned only with the court’s permission upon a showing of sufficient reasons. The applicant filed her request more than a year after submitting her principal testimony, months after the court-imposed deadline, and on the eve of the evidentiary hearing. The Court rejected her assertion that an unexpected change in the municipality’s position justified the delay: the municipality had raised the company’s asserted public status in its defense, and the need for the proposed testimony was apparent, at the latest, when the municipality filed its historian’s opinion nearly a year before the request. The applicant had meanwhile obtained permission to submit her own expert opinion but did not timely seek permission to call these witnesses.
The Court also summarily rejected the challenge to the costs imposed below because Israeli law bars leave to appeal a decision concerning an award of litigation costs. Because no response was requested, the Supreme Court made no costs order. It added that the District Court remains authorized to reconsider whether the witnesses are needed if that issue arises later in the proceedings.
Key Takeaways
- Appellate courts ordinarily will not intervene in trial-management decisions concerning the late summoning of witnesses.
- A party seeking an unlisted witness must act promptly and explain both the delay and the testimony’s necessity; a general appeal to discovering the truth is insufficient.
- A claimed change in the opposing party’s position will not excuse delay when the relevant issue was already pleaded or clearly addressed in previously filed evidence.
- A ruling imposing litigation costs is not independently reviewable through an application for leave to appeal.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores the practical force of Israel’s witness-disclosure rules. Even where the underlying litigation raises substantial property and expropriation issues, a party may lose the opportunity to present additional testimony by waiting until shortly before trial and failing to establish its specific relevance.
The ruling does not resolve whether the 1965 sale amounted to a coerced expropriation or whether the applicant has repurchase or compensation rights. It addresses only the interlocutory procedural ruling, while preserving the District Court’s ability to summon the witnesses later if their testimony proves necessary.