Legal Articles and Guides

Ten years after a mother delivered a stillborn baby as a result of negligence by a hospital in Johannesburg‚ the SCA ordered the Gauteng Health MEC to pay her R100 000 in damages for emotional shock, says a TimesLIVE report. Delisile Mbhele claimed that negligence on the part of the medical staff resulted in her baby being stillborn.

Allegations that Western Province Rugby (WPR) faked bankruptcy for ulterior motives have emerged in an urgent application at the Western Cape High Court which one of its partners lodged last week, says a Weekend Argus report. WPR was provisionally wound up a week ago amid claims that it suffered an operating loss of more than R12m in the 2015 financial year, that its overdraft facility with its bank was as high as R19m and that it was left without funds to cover operating expenses.

The Witzenberg Municipality came under fire this week for lax security measures at the popular Pine Forest Resort it manages in Ceres when the Western Cape High Court found it liable for the 2009 rape of a disabled teen (now 25) at the premises, notes a Weekend Argus report. The municipality denied negligence and pleaded that, in the event the court found that it was negligent, the girl’s parents should also be held partly responsible.

ANC Chief Whip Jackson Mthembu is suing SABC group executive of corporate affairs Hlaudi Motsoeneng for R1m for making ‘malicious and defamatory’ comments about him. According to a BusinessLIVE report, Mthembu is asking the courts to order Motsoeneng to pay R1m, to issue an unconditional public apology and to pay the legal costs. This comes after Motsoeneng lashed out Mthembu while speaking at The New Age business briefing on 27 October.

The Department of Education is in trouble with the law after its teachers ignored a Chapter Nine institution order to stop discriminating against pupils belonging to the Nazareth Baptist (Shembe) Church. The Mercury reports 13 schools in the province have been accused of forcing pupils who are members of the church to cut their hair. This after they had been warned that they were interfering with pupils’ right to practise their religion.

Grahamstown resident Sazi Matama (45) has instituted a R100 000 claim against the business owner who admitted to calling him a ‘kaffir’ after a parking altercation. A Cape Times report says Matama has charged that Muiriel Els’ conduct has violated his rights to human dignity and violated the Promotion to Equality and Unfair Discrimination Act. His case at the Equality Court in Grahamstown was postponed this week for heads of arguments.

The SCA has clarified the powers of investigators appointed to investigate Ponzi schemes and facilitate the repayment of illegally obtained funds to duped investors. The Mercury reports the court was dealing with a case related to the Travel Ventures Institute (TVI) scheme, identified as a Ponzi scheme and shut down by the Reserve Bank. Judge Nambitha Dambuza, with four judges concurring, said TVI – promoted as an international direct-selling company – had the structure of a pyramid scheme.

Taxpayers should not have to pay President Jacob Zuma’s legal costs when he has abused the court, lied under oath, and is litigating to protect his own personal interests, opposition parties are arguing in court papers, says a BusinessLIVE report.

Malcolm Kilmister (71) – who had a triple heart bypass operation in July 2012 but had to return to the operating table after a surgical swab was left in his chest cavity – is suing the cardio-vascular surgeon who operated on him, says a report in The Mercury. Kilmister initially instated his R1.2m claim against both the specialist surgeon and the Glynnwood Hospital, but the hospital successfully approached the court to order him to drop his claim against it as there was nothing to implicate it in any wrongdoing.

In a significant ruling – given the Treasury’s pending application seeking a declaration that it may not intervene in the relationship between the big four banks and the Gupta family – the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) yesterday found Absa Bank’s bona fides could not be questioned when in 2013 it closed the accounts of businessman Fana Hlongwane and his companies, notes Daily News.

Two robbers who managed to saw through the bars of their holding cells at the Middelburg Magistrate’s Court during a lunch break and then simply walked out of an unlocked door to the parking area will cost the taxpayer R2.2m in damages. A report on the IoL site notes that this is after the robbers attacked an elderly couple about a week later on their farm near Middelburg.

Private property developers at the centre of a legal dispute expected the court to ‘get blood out of a stone’ when they asked that Bromwell Street residents in Woodstock – who are facing eviction – pay their legal costs. A Cape Times report says the lawyer for Woodstock Hub had asked the Western Cape High Court yesterday to order the residents to pay for the legal fees.

The Department of Transport’s fight with service provider Tasima continues in the Constitutional Court today. A Business Day report says this leg of the legal tussle could bring the drawn-out battle to an end. The source of the tension is a five-year contract extension granted to Tasima in 2010, which the department contends is invalid. Also at play are the department’s repeated failures to pay Tasima despite it being ordered to do so by a court.

A former SARS employee‚ fired in 2007 by then SARS Commissioner Pravin Gordhan for using racist and derogatory language‚ has had the reversal of his dismissal overturned by the Constitutional Court. In what media reports describe as a 'scathing' judgment handed down by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng yesterday‚ Jacobus Kruger was labelled a racist for using the k-word at work in August 2007. The ruling has inplications for workplaces across the country, notes Daily News.

Western Cape High Court Judge Robert Henney yesterday granted a final order for the liquidation of the Beyers Realty Group after millions disappeared from the company’s trust account. A Cape Times report says the company had been placed in provisional liquidation on 4 October. Both Beyers Swanepoel-Trollip and his husband and business partner, Lenard Swanepoel-Trollip, who were 50/50 partners in the real estate firm, have absconded and are believed to be in Australia with their 11-month-old daughter.