Lawsuit of the Day: No Way But the Ho Way?

Justice Scalia — who, by the way, went toe-to-toe with the ACLU’s Nadine Strossen over the weekend — doesn’t like to expose himself to the toxic influence of foreign law. But here at ATL, we are happy to look abroad, especially when overseas courts are having this much fun.
From Avi Bell, over at PrawfsBlawg:

Israel’s Supreme Court struck down a damages award that included reimbursement for future weekly visits with a prostitute. The tort victim had been injured in a traffic accident and his sexual function had been impaired; the Tel Aviv district court accepted his claim that, after the accident, he could only perform with prostitutes. The district court had therefore ruled that — in addition to receiving compensation for lost earnings — the plaintiff was entitled to compensation for continuing “medical care,” including the aforementioned visits to prostitutes and calls to escort services. [A] number of other cases from Tel Aviv and Haifa… had apparently awarded similar compensation.

This line of cases makes perfect sense to us. Furthermore, whether the accident victim can get it up only with the help of paid professionals strikes us as an issue of fact that should be decided by trial courts in the first instance.
Alas, the mean old Israel Supreme Court had a different take on the situation:

The practice, however, has ended. Henceforth, per Justice Rivlin, Israeli courts should limit their rulings to compensating for services that can be legally obtained; thus, no compensation for visits to prostitutes. The Court left open the question of whether sexual surrogate services can be compensated.

It’s unjust to leave an accident victim so far from being made whole. Seems to us that Israel could use some tort reform.
Strange Tort Case of the Week [PrawfsBlawg]

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