Submitting briefs to the court – why is it important and what will happen if you don't submit them?

What are summaries?

Submitting briefs to the court is a critical step because even if the litigant excels in all his arguments and evidence throughout the proceedings, if he does not submit written briefs or detail his oral briefs at the relevant time, he will lose in court. That is, The lawsuit cannot be won. Without submitting written summaries to the court or presenting oral summaries.

Summaries, or summarizing arguments, is the final stage in any Civil lawsuit or Financial claim Or even Class action lawsuitAt this stage, each party explains to the court why his claims should be accepted, all based on the pleadings of all parties in the case, protocols, previous decisions in the case, and any evidence that may assist the party.

By what authority must summaries be submitted to the court?

Like any other legal procedure, the submission of briefs to the court must be anchored in a specific legal provision. This provision is set out in Regulation 74. Civil Procedure Regulations, which states as follows:

74. (a) The summaries of the parties' arguments shall be heard orally as soon as possible after the conclusion of the presentation of evidence; the court may, in appropriate cases, taking into account, inter alia, the scope of the written and oral evidence, the complexity of the claim and the nature of the dispute between the parties, order that the summaries of the arguments on the entire case or on a specific question it has directed, be submitted in writing.

(b) The court shall order the order of the summaries of the arguments, the duration of the oral arguments or the scope of the written arguments.

(c) Failure to submit written summaries of the arguments on time shall be deemed to be failure to appear for the hearing.

Regulation 74 of the new Civil Procedure Regulations constitutes a certain change of trend in all matters relating to the issue of submitting briefs to the court. While in the past, in most cases, written briefs were submitted, the trend according to the new regulations is to allow for oral summaries of arguments, immediately after the hearing. The evidence discussion.

The purpose of this change is to allow for procedural efficiency and to try to conclude the proceedings as soon as possible. If in the past the court allowed the plaintiff to submit briefs within 30 days after the evidentiary hearing, and then another 30 days for the defendant to submit his briefs, today both parties usually submit briefs orally immediately after the evidentiary hearing, and the court can begin the task of writing The verdict Immediately after that discussion.

On the other hand, even today, in complex cases involving many litigants, the tendency is to allow written summaries to be submitted to the court. The reason for this is that sometimes at the end of the evidentiary hearing the minutes number dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of pages, and it is simply not reasonable or possible to read the entire thing in a short time in order to present relevant data from it as part of the summary of the claims.

What happens if summaries are not submitted?

Note that Rule 74(c) mentioned above explicitly states that failure to submit briefs to the court is considered a failure to appear in court. Rule 75 states what happens if you fail to appear for the hearing:

Failure to appear for the hearing

75. If a party fails to appear and no reasonable excuse is given for the failure to appear, the following provisions shall apply:

(1) If the plaintiff does not appear, the court will strike out the statement of claim or dismiss the claim if it finds special reasons for dismissal;

(2) If the defendant did not appear and the plaintiff did appear, the plaintiff may prove his claim, and will be entitled to the relief he requested based on the evidence received.

This means that if the plaintiff did not submit summaries to the court, the court may order the lawsuit to be struck out or even dismissed.

לעומת זאת, אם הגשת סיכומים לבית המשפט לא התבצעה על ידי הנתבע, בית המשפט רשאי לקבל את התביעה על בסיס טענות וסיכומי התובע. בית המשפט לא חייב לקבל את התביעה במצב זה באופן אוטומטי. בעניין זה בדיוק נפסק על ידי בית המשפט העליון, במסגרת ע"א 3682/23 מדינת ישראל משרד הבריאות נ' פלוני, בין היתר, כך:

With due caution, and without setting any precedents, I believe that the applicant's appeal has a real chance of being accepted: as stated above, in its ruling given due to the applicant's failure to submit its briefs on the dates set for this purpose, the trial court accepted the respondent's claim in full. ואולם, בהתאם לתקנות 74(ג) ו-75(ב) לתקנות, הסנקציה בגין אי-הגשת הסיכומים במועד, אינה קבלה "אוטומטית" של התביעה במלואה, כי אם מתן הזדמנות לתובע "להוכיח את תביעתו […] לפי הראיות שהתקבלו" (ההדגשה הוספה – י' כ'). בהתאם לכך, חלף קבלת התביעה במלואה, דומה שהיה על בית המשפט קמא לבחון את הראיות שהוגשו בתיק, ולקבוע האם יש בהן כדי לגבש לתובע (המשיב דכאן) זכות לפיצויים, ובאיזה היקף.

What should be detailed or written in summaries?

Submitting written or oral briefs to the court requires in-depth familiarity not only with our claims but also with the opposing party's claims. The reason for this is simple: the opposing party's claims may contain data or evidence that supports our claims or is detrimental to the opposing party's claims.

The summaries should address the legal claims and facts on the basis of which the court is asked to accept the lawsuit.

All pleadings in the case, requests and interim decisions, protocols, must be addressed. Affidavits of first-degree witnesses, Testimony of the parties and relevant witnesses during the hearings, documents submitted by the parties and relevant witnesses (such as Expert opinion), of course, as long as these data or documents contain claims that can help and not harm.

If there is a harmful issue, we need to think about how to address it and convince the court that it is not material, but rather marginal, and does not affect the acceptance of our claims. Material issues that could be harmful should not be completely ignored.

Raising new claims in the summary, claims that were not raised in the statement of claim or the statement of defense, may be rejected if the opposing party raises (and rightly) a claim regarding Front extension.

במסגרת הגשת סיכומים לבית המשפט אפשר לצרף מסמכים שכבר הוגשו והתקבלו כדין לתיק בית המשפט, אך לא ניתן להגיש מסמכים או ראיות חדשות, ללא קבלת היתר מראש לבית המשפט. בעניין זה נקבע על ידי בית המשפט העליון, במסגרת בש"א 5650/19 ניסים עדיקה נ' יעקב אמסטר, בין היתר, כך:

Even the respondent's claim that the documents were attached as exhibits in his briefs in the district court with the appellant's consent and were thus admitted as evidence cannot stand. This is because, even if it had been possible to submit the said documents at the time and they had been admitted as evidence, In the absence of a decision on their acceptance as admissible evidence and in light of the rule that new evidence cannot be submitted at the summary stage in the trial court, the starting point is that these documents were not lawfully admitted as evidence.…

Abandoning claims in summaries

Submitting briefs to the court is the party's last opportunity to address all of its arguments and arguments. Failure to address any claim or evidence may be accepted in court as an abandonment of that claim.That is, even if the litigant addressed the claim within the framework of Claim or Defense (depending on the identity of the litigant), or even as part of the affidavits of primary witness, but did not mention the claim as part of his summaries, he may be seen as no longer standing by this claim.

בעניין זה ישנה פסיקה מאוד ברורה של בית המשפט העליון. לדוגמה במסגרת רע"א 4159/21 חברת פרטנר תקשורת נ' יוני כרמי, שם נקבע, בין היתר, כך:

As is known, it is a settled and well-established rule that the briefs exhaust the arguments of the litigant in the judicial process and delimit the scope of the dispute between the parties; and as a general rule, the court will not need to consider an argument that was not raised in the briefs. (ע"א 1409/20 כפר אז"ר – מושב עובדים להתיישבות חקלאית שיתופית בע"מ נ' קרן קיימת לישראל, פסקה 42 (15.12.2022); ע"א 3432/17 טופז נ' יוכט, פסקה 23 (16.4.2020); ע"א 172/89 סלע חברה לביטוח בע"מ נ' סולל בונה בע"מ, פ"ד מז(1) 311, 321 (1993)).

In our case, the fact that the additional causes of action were alleged in the pleadings It does not exempt Karmi from repeating and being required to do so within the framework of the summaries, to the extent that they stand by the claims.; and an argument by reference to the pleadings is not sufficient, as it entails a violation of the principle of equal treatment between parties to the proceedings and a violation of Partner's procedural rights to understand the scope of the dispute and provide a response to it as required.

באופן דומה נפסק גם על זניחת טענה בסיכומים בשלב הערעור. ראו לדוגמה פסק דין של בית המשפט העליון בעניין ע"א 1501/05 זאב כהן נ' מנהל מס שבח תל אביב, בו נפסק, בין היתר, כך:

כתב הערעור צריך לכלול על כן את עיקרי הטענות שכן "A claim that was made in a written pleading, but was not raised before the court in the briefs, is considered an abandoned claim and the judge is not required to consider it." (ראו זוסמן, בעמ' 512 וכן ע"א 172/89 סלע חברה לביטוח בע"מ נ' סולל בונה, פ"ד מז (1)311).

In conclusion

Filing briefs with the court is critical to winning a lawsuit. If a litigant does not file his briefs, he will not be able to win the lawsuit, and the court may even dismiss the lawsuit.

Submission of summaries to the court can be done in writing, but the trend according to the new regulations is to summarize arguments orally, immediately after the evidentiary hearing.

In the summary, the party must address all the factual and legal claims on the basis of which he wishes to convince the court to accept the claim. Upon submitting summary to the court, the party may attach documents that were accepted as admissible evidence to the court file. The party may not attach documents to the summary that were not lawfully accepted, or assert new factual or legal claims that were not previously asserted, because this would constitute an expansion of the front.

A party who did not address any claim in his briefs will be deemed to have abandoned the claim, and the court is not obligated to address it or discuss it, even if it was explicitly raised in the statement of claim or the statement of defense.

Frequently asked questions about submitting summaries?