Who is responsible for the proper functioning of the cranes?

This decision of the court was given as part of the verdict regarding a serious work accident that occurred in October 2010, as a result of which a crane operator, the late Alexander Moiseychikov, fell to his death from a height of 50 meters at a construction site of the "Malibu Construction Ltd." company in Ramat Hasharon.

In connection with the accident, the Tel Aviv District Attorney's Office (Criminal) filed indictments for the offense of causing death by negligence against the foreman who was responsible for safety at the construction site in question, on the grounds that he did not properly check the crane logbook documenting the daily inspections performed on it, and also against the crane operators who worked on the same crane before the deceased.

From a professional perspective, according to safety rules, the care of a tower crane requires specific professional expertise, starting from the time it is erected on site, as well as during its operation, maintenance, and inspection, and ending with its dismantling, an issue that is becoming even more relevant these days, when on many job sites cranes are giant structures that rise to heights of dozens of meters.

In the operator's cabin of a tower crane, there should be a metal grid ("grating") installed on which the operator is supposed to work, and, underneath it, an armored glass window that allows the crane operator to observe the work area below him.

In this case, the grille in the cell to which the deceased had climbed to work was removed, and the armored window was replaced with a transparent plastic type - glued Plexiglas, which detached when the deceased stepped on it and as a result fell from a height of 50 meters to his death.

It should be noted that, although this was an extremely serious case that ended in the death of a person, no indictment was filed against the executing contractor, Malibu Construction Ltd., and the company was not prosecuted, a matter that was severely criticized by the court regarding the conduct of the Attorney General's Office and the police, for not finding it appropriate to investigate the executing contractor and prosecuted the junior employees, even though during the investigation conducted on behalf of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, additional safety defects were found in the contractor's conduct.

As a matter of fact, in its ruling, the court explicitly states: "... that the special expertise required to handle cranes is not and cannot be possessed by the foreman, who is generally not an engineer. Therefore, it is more reasonable and more appropriate to impose the supervision duties regarding cranes on the construction operation . Furthermore, when it comes to construction sites where cranes are erected, these are large construction sites and in any case construction operations that are large economic entities that have the resources required to hire the services of the appropriate engineers and safety officers. Hence, there is also no logic or justification to exempt the construction operation from its obligations under the law in everything related to the proper maintenance of cranes erected at the construction site, including in the matter of supervision over the management of the crane register."

At the end of the day, because of this, the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court acquitted the construction manager and the contractor, who were prosecuted for causing death by negligence, despite its position that: "The seriousness of the evidence and the testimonies brought before the court indicate, ostensibly, actual negligence on the part of the construction operator in all matters concerning the chain of events that led to the tragic accident," while instructing the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, which is the legislator, to fill the legislative gap that was exposed in this case, in all matters related to regulating training and supervision of the erection of tower cranes at construction sites.

PO Box 10830-08-15 (Tel Aviv-Jaffa Magistrate's Court) State of Israel v. Jabarin et al.
Attorney for the prosecution: State of Israel – Tel Aviv District Attorney's Office (Criminal).
Attorneys for the defendants: Attorney Muhammad Jabarin and Attorney Nick Benri.
The writer did not represent anyone in this case.