The Tel Aviv Regional Labor Court has rejected a lawyer's claim that she was fired from a small law office with no hearing and no notice. The ruling was published on 26 October 2026. In the court's view she ended the job herself: an email she sent in anger, saying she regarded her employer's silence as a dismissal, counted as a resignation.
She sued for about ₪210,000. The court awarded her about ₪33,170, and most of that had nothing to do with the dismissal question. It came from the ordinary lapses of a small employer: vacation days deducted unlawfully, payslips he could not prove he handed over, and a written notice of employment terms that arrived two years late.
One email, then three and a half more months at work
She joined the office in July 2020. She was its only lawyer and in practice ran it. In May 2023 the pension agent found missing deposits. At the end of October 2023 he wrote to the employer that she was no longer covered for disability and survivors' benefits.
On 6 November 2023, ill and frustrated, she emailed the employer: since he had not answered her, she saw his ignoring her as a dismissal in every sense. The next day he replied politely that she should recover first and give notice when she could, adding that he would not argue with her over whether she had been fired or had resigned.
She kept working and kept being paid. In December and January he offered her hourly work, freelance work or a partnership, and she turned them down because she needed a fixed salary. According to the employer, a meeting on 11 January 2024 agreed that the job would end a month later, on 11 February. On 25 February he emailed her that the relationship had ended two weeks earlier. The next morning she found her access to the office computers blocked.
Why the court treated the email as a resignation
The court found the email was written in anger and frustration. An employee who resigns in anger may take it back, but has to do so explicitly and within a reasonable time. She did not prove she had. In testimony she said she did not need to, because he had called her to a meeting and they carried on as usual.
The court rejected that, in part because she is a lawyer who also practises labor law and knows the requirements. It added that an employee cannot tell an employer in advance that unless the employer does something, the employee will consider herself dismissed.
The three and a half months she worked after the email were treated as an extended notice period, stretched by her illness, the talks over further work, and a case she had to finish. Her claims for severance pay, pay in lieu of notice and compensation for dismissal without a hearing were dismissed.
Where the employer still lost money
The employer argued she worked less than 5% of a full-time position and produced parking reports as evidence. The court did not accept them, partly because whoever prepared the reports did not testify. It found she worked a 60% position, as the employer himself had calculated at the time.
He also could not set the end date at 11 February when she actually worked until the 25th, so she is owed pay for those two weeks. He deducted three vacation days unlawfully and admitted he did not know how many days he should have deducted. He did not prove he gave her payslips from September 2022 on, and the Ministry of Labor had already issued him an administrative warning over it.
The award breaks down as ₪20,792 for unused vacation, ₪7,676 in wage differences, ₪3,000 over the payslips, ₪1,500 over the employment terms notice and ₪202 in travel costs, plus interest from 1 March 2024 and ₪3,000 in legal costs. The amount for the terms notice was reduced because she had drafted that notice herself. Her claim for recuperation pay was rejected.
For a business with one or two employees
An employee who fires off an angry "I consider myself dismissed" email does not turn the employer into the one who fired them. Answer in writing, as this employer did, and keep the thread. That correspondence decided the case.
Winning on the dismissal did not spare him the rest. The terms notice belongs at the start of the job, a payslip has to go out every month with a record that it did, vacation deductions need a calculation you can show, and the size of the position needs to be on record. In this case each of those items cost money.