A day in the Court

Yesterday I was called as an expert witness in a dispute. One side: an elderly cancer stricken widow. On the other side: two violent looking "plumbers". The woman's home had a small blot of humidity. They came and they broke the walls in order to change the whole pipelines. They took 2000 dollars from the widow and did not finish the job. There is TV program in Israel that tricks plumbers, electricians, etc. to come to repair inexistent failures (like the refrigerator making noise) and to catch them charging for unnecessary work. The plumbers in question were caught by the program, but the judge rejected the submittal because TV programs are not evidence.

The plumbers argument was that today, iron pipes are being replaced by plastic ones, even if they are perfectly serviceable. It is true, but they were called to stop a minuscule inconvenience, normally costing 70 dollars a call. I adopted a grandfatherly tone, praising their professional competence and that I understand their need to maximize the income from each job.

When the leading plumber realized that he was losing, he asked the judge to erase the names of his partners, as he was the boss and the others, his subordinates. That is the law of the criminal underworld. The boss takes the responsibility for the failure. He did not wish to be the next victim of the wave of executions going on in the Israeli criminal underworld.