Legal Articles and Guides

Motor vehicle insurance companies can reject car accident claims on the grounds of drunk driving, even if there is no toxicology report to prove it. TimesLIVE reports that insurers can rely on circumstantial evidence, such as witnesses saying the driver smelt of alcohol or acted drunk at the accident scene to substantiate rejecting a claim.

Liberty Life has failed in its bid to reject a payment to a disabled claimant, and has been ordered to cough up. A Cape Times report says long-term Insurance Ombudsman Judge Ron McLaren ordered Liberty Life to pay an unemployed diabetic a disability benefit of about R200 000, which includes interest. The claimant at the centre of the dispute was diagnosed with diabetes with ‘severe peripheral neuropathy’ in July 2012.

The damages claim of a seven-year-old boy who developed cerebral palsy after state medical staff at the Mowbray Maternity Hospital failed to diagnose that he had jaundice at birth, is set to be finalised, according to a Weekend Argus report. It notes the Western Cape High Court has handed down a judgment in which it determined the boy’s life expectancy and found his expected age of death was 55. The parties’ lawyers and the Centre for Child Law spent 45 days thrashing out the issues before Judge Owen Rogers.