A Pretoria woman who is suing a Western Cape hotel for injuries she sustained during a bath could wind up inadvertently litigating against her parents, according to a Sunday Times report. Dominique Jacobs is embroiled in a drawn-out legal battle with the Beacon Island Hotel in Plettenberg Bay over the 2012 incident in which a shower door shattered and cut her, she claims.

She launched the lawsuit in 2014 and is suing the hotel for R700 000 for the pain she endured and for ‘past and future loss of earning capacity’. The hotel denies liability and, in a surprise move, dragged Jacobs’ parents, Juan and Anneke Jacobs, into the skirmish by joining them as parties in the court action.

Juan has time-share use of the hotel, which, it says, binds him ‘contractually to indemnify the (hotel) against any liability it might incur in respect of the sort of claim brought by (his daughter)’.

Paul Eia, counsel for the hotel, told the court Dominique was her father’s guest at the hotel when the incident happened.

Whether or not Juan was so bound was the subject of an appeal he made to the full Bench of the court, which struck the matter off the roll and ordered Juan to pay costs in the abortive appeal.

‘This matter should never have had to come before (the judge); even less so before us on appeal. It tells a story of how litigation should not be conducted,’ Judge Ashley Binns-Ward said.

Juan‘s lawyer Anthony Bachelor from A Bachelor and Associates reportedly told the newspaper the decision had no bearing on the pending lawsuit. The matter is to be heard in October.

Full Sunday Times report (subscription needed)