Yiron Festinger

Attorney Yiron Festinger is one of the most prominent attorneys in the fields of torts, medical malpractice, and insurance in the State of Israel. Throughout his 43 years of practice in the legal world, Attorney Festinger has accumulated extensive experience in handling complex cases and has been credited with numerous legal achievements and precedents.

Experience

In addition to his professional work, Attorney Festinger has been engaged for many years in extensive public activity. Between 1993-1999, Attorney Festinger served as the representative of the Israel Bar Association on the Klinghoffer Committee, a public committee established by the government of the late Yitzhak Rabin, which examined the field of medical malpractice in Israel. Additionally, Attorney Festinger served for over two decades as a member of the Central Committee of the Israel Bar Association, was the founder and chairman of the Torts Forum at the Israel Bar Association, and led public campaigns on behalf of the Israel Bar Association and for the benefit of the public. His legal and public work, alongside his journalistic writing on the legal world, have earned Attorney Festinger a reputation as one of Israel's most prominent attorneys.

Over the years, Attorney Festinger has led a series of initiatives aimed at protecting the field of torts and the attorneys practicing in this field, on issues such as: the Branson Committee to prevent harm to the Compensation for Road Accident Victims Law, the Or Committee on changing court jurisdictions, public opposition to the government's initiative to shorten the statute of limitations from 7 to 4 years, protest against the government's initiative to cut medical malpractice rights and nationalize the field, struggle against the initiative to introduce a second shift in the courts, which would have required attorneys to appear in the afternoon and evening hours, and more.

Attorney Festinger served as the public representative on the advisory committee to the authorized manager of the construction workers' pension fund, Attorney Yechiel Katz, a management that lasted many years and later became the largest liquidation in the history of the State of Israel.

Success

Among the prominent cases in which Attorney Festinger represented:

• Beinisch-Adiel v. Danya Cebus – Attorney Yiron Festinger represented Beinisch-Adiel, a law office, in a case that created a precedent whereby attorneys are entitled to legal fees, even if the case was transferred after a period to representation by another firm, and even if a written fee agreement was not made. Moreover, it was ruled that the legal fees awarded would bear interest until the date of actual payment. This is a fundamental and leading verdict that is cited in the vast majority of verdicts issued in recent years regarding claims for attorney fees. [monetary value]

• Ami Yifrach v. Eliahu Insurance Company Ltd. – A significant fundamental precedent in the field of calculating earning capacity in cases of torts and car accidents. In cases where a person worked before suffering a disability and returned to work even after becoming disabled, ostensibly without harm to their earnings, there is a problem in calculating loss of earning capacity, as they were ostensibly not harmed. The court ruled that even in cases where there is ostensibly no harm to earning capacity, there is possible future harm, and therefore loss of earning capacity should be calculated as 50% of the multipliers of potential future earning capacity.

• Yaffa Levy v. Health Fund – A precedent in the matter of evidential damage, which established that where full medical information is not provided to a victim of medical malpractice, and all treatment options were not specified at the time of treating the illness, this cannot be relied upon later during the lawsuit to claim that the patient should have acted differently in a way that would have reduced their damage.

• Red Crescent Hospital v. John Doe, John Doe v. Clalit Health Fund – Attorney Festinger represented in two lawsuits of broad significance, in which the statute of limitations was extended for lawsuits based on birth injury in tort, which had been significantly restricted under the Hamar precedent. The establishment of these precedents enabled dozens of families whose loved ones suffer from various injuries to receive compensation for these injuries, where this was not previously possible due to the Hamar precedent.

In 2007, Attorney Festinger's book "Whose House Is This?" was published, containing a collection of his articles and those of other jurists regarding the conduct of the court and its judges.