Legal Articles and Guides

A Durban nurse says she is still battling to be compensated properly after she contracted HIV 13 years ago from a needle stick injury to her left thumb while attending to a patient at the private hospital where she worked, says a report in The Mercury. The nurse claims the hospital’s insurer, the Compensation Fund, deemed that she was only 15% disabled, and paid her accordingly, and is now rejecting her appeals to reconsider because of her declining health and inability to work.

The silicosis case was back in court yesterday (Thursday), with lawyers representing mine workers arguing that allowing gold-mining companies to appeal against the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) landmark class action judgment would delay the resolution of the case, while litigants were dying without compensation, says a Business Day report. It notes May’s class-action certification judgment paved the way for billions in claims by former goldmine workers suffering from silicosis and tuberculosis. The size and scope of the class action is unprecedented. If the lawsuit were to go ahead on the basis certified by the High Court, it will be against almost all the major mining companies involved in goldmining in SA since 1965, including parent companies. It would cover their conduct for more than 50 years and th ere could be between 17 000 and 50 000 claimants.