RAF, lawyers at odds over claims stipulation
The Road Accident Fund (RAF) will no longer accept claims without a list of required documents such as accident reports, according to legal writer Zelda Venter in a Pretoria News report.
This directive, issued in March, will remain in place, and whoever lodges a claim without the required list of annexures, will be turned away and told to return once all the necessary documents are at hand.
This is according to RAF chief executive Collins Letsoalo.
He said the RAF had a host of ‘skeleton claims’ which could not be finalised as the claim handlers had not received the required documents. To streamline the settlement of claims and subsequent payments to road accident victims, the RAF board under the leadership of Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula had embarked on a new strategic path, he said.
Central to the strategy was the settlement of claims within 120 days, reducing the average age of old claims and reducing administrative costs – a strategy he said was bearing fruit.
‘Notwithstanding these positive developments, challenges remain in ensuring the fund settles claims within 120 days and reduces the claims backlog.’
Letsoalo said one of the main problems was that many plaintiff attorneys lodge claims without sufficient information to enable the fund to investigate and settle claims within 120 days.
‘This enables the attorneys to issue summons against the fund after the prescribed 120 days has lapsed, thereby charging legal costs.’
Letsoalo said the fund spends about R6bn on legal costs in this regard.
The fund has a host of files which lack the necessary information; thus they have not been able to make any quantum offer.
Without this information, he said, they cannot investigate and settle these claims within the prescribed 120 days.
Several plaintiff lawyers, however, question this move, noting it would especially hamper those who represent themselves.
According to the Pretoria News report, lawyer Gert Nel said in terms of Section 24(1)(b), the fund may not refuse anyone’s rights to lodge a claim, even if they don’t have all the required documents at first.
He said it takes time to obtain documents such as an accident report, if it’s ever obtained.
Nel said the only requirement in law is that a claim needs to be supported by an affidavit and a medical report. The rest of the documents are supplementary and could be provided in the allocated time.
‘It is problematic that the fund shows claimants the door. The law is clear that all claims must be accepted.’
Lawyer JP Rudd said in a letter to the fund that these directives are frustrating the rights of his clients to speedily lodge a claim. He pointed out that the fund, in refusing to accept the lodgement of claims, has already resulted in two urgent court orders issued by a judge, in which the fund was told to accept the claim, although it did not adhere to the directive.
Rudd said the directive is of no legal force as only the Transport Minister can regulate and not the chief executive of the RAF.
Besides, he said, the directive was not gazetted.
Rudd has lodged an urgent application in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) for an interim interdict to stay the implementation of the directive on documents to be submitted when lodging a compensation claim.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
