The Jerusalem District Court ruled on Sunday that the Gross family, who lost two daughters after their home was exterminated eight years ago, will receive compensation in the sum of of NIS 3.5 million.

According to a Channel 12 News report, the compensation will be paid by the exterminator and Terem urgent care clinics, where a doctor brushed off the children’s symptoms as “just a virus” although the parents informed them that their house had just undergone extermination.

The terrible tragedy that shook the entire country occurred in January 2014 in  Givat Mordechai neighborhood of Jerusalem, when Yael and Avigayil Gross, z’l, 1.5 and 4, passed away after a home exterminator used a poisonous agricultural pesticide in the extermination of the Gross’ apartment. The girls’ older brothers, Michoel and Yitzchak, 6 and 8, were hospitalized in critical condition and placed on ECMO machines after suffering serious damage to their hearts. B’Chasdei Hashem, they recovered after almost a month-long hospitalization.

The court ruling stated: “The defendant used a deadly substance that is banned for use in a residential apartment while being aware of the ban. He created the risk and enabled it to materialize.”

“And Terem’s responsibility is expressed in the fact that its doctor did not adequately heed the family’s statements that extermination was carried out in their home and did not evaluate the implications of this possibility. [The doctor] could indeed have prevented the outcome.”

Attorney Yuval Rubinoff, who represented the Gross family,” stated: “In its ruling, the court accepted all the claims of the parents against Terem. The court ruled that given the fact that the parents informed the Terem doctor about the extermination, there was no reason to assume it was just a stomach virus, sending the parents and children back home.”

“There is no compensation for lives cut short at such a young age but there is a small consolation in the fact that the court has set a standard of conduct that may prevent the recurrence of similar cases in the future.”

A year and a half after the tragedy, the parents filed a NIS 11 million lawsuit against the exterminator and Terem.

In 2017, the extermination was convicted for two counts of manslaughter and four counts of grievous bodily harm as part of a plea bargain and was sentenced to three years in prison. The Gross family agreed to the plea bargain after their lawyer examined all the circumstances of the case, including psychiatric opinions given – one at the request of the defense and the other at the request of the prosecution – indicating the
“problematic medical condition of the exterminator at the time the offense was committed.”

The Gross family agreed to the plea deal after evidence was presented that the exterminator’s medical condition at the time of the incident was problematic.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)