Claims Against Local Authorities

Bringing a Claim Against a Local Authority

What Are Claims Against Local Authorities?

Most fall within administrative law, with a minority in civil law. Administrative proceedings involve individuals or businesses challenging municipal authorities or government ministries over decisions within their statutory powers, failures to decide, or decisions outside powers granted by law. An administrative authority cannot act without express statutory authorization. Civil claims mainly concern torts or contracts between authorities and citizens, such as property, service or supply contracts.

Under Israeli law, municipalities, councils and government bodies are legal entities entitled to sue and capable of being sued. Claimants may be residents, citizens, companies or any other body with legal standing.

What Do Administrative Proceedings Against Local Authorities Concern?

Administrative law covers a broad range of matters. Common areas include:

• Planning and construction
• Municipal taxation
• Freedom of information
• Business licensing
• Infrastructure works
• Safety and hazards
• Education, culture and welfare
• Tenders
• Various licenses and permits
• Any decision outside statutory powers, lacking a factual basis, tainted by discrimination or conflict of interest, or made without allowing affected persons to be heard.

When Can Local Authorities Be Sued, and What Claims Are Common?

Authorities may be sued for acts or omissions within their territory or municipal responsibility.

Common grounds include safety defects and infrastructure failures causing financial loss or personal injury, including:

• Broken sidewalks, damaged roads, open holes, defective signage and other dangerous road obstacles.
• Faulty power lines, exposed wires and other electricity-infrastructure defects.
• Failures in drainage and sewage infrastructure causing serious problems such as flooding.
• Disruptions in municipal waste collection.

Besides safety hazards, claims may concern environmental nuisances interfering with residents’ normal lives, including:

• Odors
• Noise
• Sanitation hazards
• Environmental pollution

Another possible basis concerns payment of municipal taxes, including:

• Disproportionate or unlawful collection
• Problems collecting municipal property tax (arnona) and various levies

Administrative authorities may also be sued in tort, including for:

• Failure or negligence in performing a statutory duty
• An unlawful decision or one exceeding statutory powers

What Are the Common Causes of Action?

Municipal acts or omissions may cause financial or medical harm, so administrative proceedings often accompany tort claims. The cause of action depends on the damage suffered.

For bodily injury, the claim and relief often seek medical expenses, including treatment and examinations, nursing care, medical equipment, travel and loss of earnings. Authorities may also be sued for violating the law.

What Is a Lawyer’s Role?

In cases involving personal injury or financial loss, a lawyer specializing in administrative claims assesses prospects based on the estimated damage and possible compensation.

The lawyer performs tasks essential to success, including collecting the strongest supporting evidence: witness affidavits, expert opinions, medical records, payment receipts and correspondence with the authority.

In municipal-tax disputes, the lawyer thoroughly examines the levy’s legality and whether its amount is reasonable and proportionate. If defects are found in decision-making or the tax authority’s dealings with the claimant, the lawyer files the appropriate appeal, objection or administrative petition.

For planning and construction cases, the lawyer should have relevant expertise and experience, assisted by an architect or engineer.

Administrative claims require public- and administrative-law expertise because special rules govern standing and timing: petitions must be neither premature nor late. Deadlines are extremely short—forty-five days from the decision or less, depending on the case. Procedure also differs: experts cannot be brought and witnesses cannot be examined, making proof difficult. Judicial intervention is limited; the starting point is the authority’s correctness, the “presumption of administrative regularity.” The petitioner must prove excess of power or irrelevant considerations and extreme unreasonableness or disproportionality. Remedies are usually nonmonetary: canceling or correcting a decision, or compelling or preventing a particular act.

Why Obtain Professional Legal Assistance?

A lawyer familiar with the relevant legal field helps ensure the client’s interests are properly represented. Choose a reputable firm experienced in claims against local authorities.

Such representation is substantial work: administrative proceedings demand specialized expertise. Lawyers familiar with administrative litigation understand its nuances, fine distinctions and techniques and can provide the best service.

A. Shiloh & Co. offers advice, assistance and representation in administrative cases. Our team includes lawyers with master’s degrees specializing in public administrative law and backgrounds in architecture, urban planning and economics. It has extensive experience before administrative and district courts and the High Court of Justice, as well as advising municipalities and planning committees and serving on the highest planning body, the National Planning and Building Council.

Notable matters include the petition for Haifa’s Rothschild neighborhood residents and the Shomrei HaSaf association against municipal and local planning-committee policies reducing residents’ replacement floor areas in urban-renewal projects during the coronavirus crisis; the Car2Go tender-duty petition; a petition to cancel expropriation of Mashhad residents’ land; and dozens of representations before planning bodies at every level, including precedents on condominium rooftop construction, National Outline Plan 38, conservation, filling stations, high-density development, land consolidation and redivision, vehicle-testing centers, quarries, coastal construction under the Coastal Law, elevators and protected rooms.