A Rush to Judgment

In 1898, Émile Zola published an open letter, J'accuse, addressed to the President and Government of France, accusing them of anti-Semitism by unlawfully jailing a French officer, Alfred Dreyfus. Zola pointed to judicial errors and lack of serious evidence leading to conviction and imprisonment of Dreyfus. In a case somewhat analogous to the ‘Dreyfus Affair’, this paper explores a legal action in which a developer of a construction system was tried and convicted of negligent homicide following the failure of the Versailles ballroom in Jerusalem that resulted in injury and death of a number of people. Similarities between these two cases are shown as prejudice and political expediency led to the accusation, investigation and conviction of the engineer, Eli Ron in the Versailles case.

The structure of the Versailles ballroom utilized a concrete structural system developed by Eli Ron. As will be shown in this paper, the system was misused by the builders and engineers directly responsible for the construction. Furthermore, the engineers charged with investigating the failure were blinded by their prejudice against the construction system and ignored evidence of the chain of events that led to the collapse. Finally, the government and the judiciary were swayed in their actions and deliberations by political considerations.

• Abstract

• Introduction

• What Happened

• The Pal-Kal System History

• History of the Versailles Hall

• Project Organization

• Post-Failure Analysis by the Writer

• Society Seeks the Guilty

• Conclusion

• Closing Statement