## Facts

- An airline’s collective agreement granted an annual free or discounted flight ticket to each permanent employee and the employee’s “spouse.”
- A later arrangement extended the benefit to a “common-law husband/wife” living together “as husband and wife” and unable to marry under law.
- A flight attendant was in a long-term same-sex relationship; he and his partner cohabited, shared a household, and jointly owned their apartment.
- The employee requested recognition of his male partner as a spouse/common-law spouse for the ticket benefit; the employer refused.
- The employee sued in the labor courts, seeking equal access to the benefit provided to opposite-sex spouses and common-law partners.

## Issues

1. Whether denying a flight-benefit to an employee’s same-sex domestic partner, while granting it to opposite-sex spouses and common-law partners, constitutes unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation under employment-equality law.
2. Whether a collective agreement may be applied to exclude same-sex partners when mandatory statutory equality norms prohibit such exclusion.
3. Whether constitutional protection of human dignity informs interpretation of employment-equality obligations and the invalidity of discriminatory employment terms.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Israel (sitting as the High Court of Justice), by a 2–1 vote, denied the employer’s petition and left in place the labor-court rulings for the employee.
- The majority held the refusal to provide the benefit to a same-sex partner was discrimination based on sexual orientation under the Equal Employment Opportunities Law.
- The majority treated the employee’s relationship as materially equivalent to an opposite-sex common-law partnership for purposes of the benefit’s function (supporting the employee’s family/household).
- The majority concluded the collective agreement and related arrangements must be applied consistently with statutory equality requirements; discriminatory contractual practices cannot justify unequal benefits.
- A dissent argued the agreement’s language (spouse/couple) referred only to heterosexual unions, so differential treatment was not discrimination between comparable categories.

## Legal Principles

- Employment discrimination includes denial of a benefit to an employee based on sexual orientation when similarly situated employees receive the benefit.
- Collective agreements and employer practices are limited by mandatory statutory equality norms; private ordering cannot authorize prohibited discrimination.
- Where contractual language is reasonably interpretable in a manner consistent with statutory equality, courts should prefer the non-discriminatory interpretation.
- Discrimination based on sexual orientation is incompatible with human dignity; constitutional values of dignity and equality inform interpretation and application of employment-equality law.
- Remedies for unlawful discrimination may require extending an existing benefit to the excluded group rather than withdrawing the benefit from others.

## Conclusion

The court required equal access to spousal flight benefits for an employee’s same-sex partner, holding that exclusion based solely on sexual orientation violates mandatory employment-equality norms and offends constitutional protections of human dignity.


El Al Isr. Airlines Ltd. v. Danielowitz, HCJ 721/94, 48(5) PD 749 (Isr. 1994)