Mungo Soggot
A Soweto man has received South Africa’s largest personal injury award – R17- million – in compensation for the paralysis and dismemberment he sustained after being shot wrongfully by the police. The Johannesburg High Court granted the award with costs in December – more than 10 years after the man was shot.
As a result of the shooting, the man sustained a spinal cord injury and became a paraplegic. He subsequently had to undergo amputations of his penis and both legs after contracting an infection.
Judge Dirk Marais said: “He was only 19 years of age when he was rendered a paraplegic and condemned to life without the use of his limbs below his nipple line and hence to a wheelchair existence.
“The plaintiff has not only lost his lower limbs at pelvic level so that he sits perched on a chair `like a bowling ball’, but he has also lost his penis.”
The law firm acting for the plaintiff, Nam-Ford Attorneys, asked the Mail & Guardian not to publish the plaintiff’s name as he had received threats from family members eager for a share of whatever he received from his court action. The court heard evidence that the plaintiff had been terrorised by his brother.
Joyce Nam-Ford said her client was also very embarrassed about his injuries.
Minister of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi has sought the opinion of senior counsel as to whether the state should appeal the damages award.
“The minister wants to ensure that victims of wrongful police action are fairly and properly compensated. At the same time, in view of the amount awarded in this case, he has the added responsibility that damages are not excessive,” said the legal services director of the safety and security secretariat, Amichand Soman.
The court awarded the plaintiff about R14-million for his future expenses, which will include expenditure on sophisticated equipment for paraplegia – and for his other injuries which include deafness as a result of large doses of antibiotics he took to combat sepsis. A further R400 000 was awarded in general damages, which are meant to alleviate pain and suffering.
Judge Marais said: “No money can compensate the plaintiff for his physical and mental suffering; his loss of mobility and independence; the destruction of his life, and the loss of his limbs and his manhood. My award is but a feeble palliative.”
The plaintiff, who had left school in standard 7 at the time of the shooting, received R689 783 for his future loss of earnings.
The case has been subject to numerous delays. The police appealed the supreme court’s finding that the plaintiff had been shot wrongfully, and lodged several applications during the trial over the amount of damages that should be awarded.
The plaintiff was shot during a raid by six police officers who were tipped off, incorrectly, that he had a gun. The police officers’ informants had been involved in a brawl with the plaintiff at a shebeen.
The previous high water mark in South Africa for personal injury damages was R16,5-million – an award made to a Cape Town merchant banker in 1996 who became a quadriplegic in a car accident. The damages reflected the banker’s future medical expenses, but also his very high future earning potential.
Damages in South African personal injury cases have traditionally been relatively modest by international standards and considerably lower than those awarded by United States courts.
Unlike in the US, South African plaintiffs generally receive little compensation for their pain and suffering. The bulk of their damages reflect their future loss of earnings and future expenses.
Judge Marais ruled that the plaintiff’s amputations were a result of his paraplegia – an aspect of the plaintiff’s claim which was contested by the police, who argued that they stemmed from the plaintiff’s failure to look after himself.
The court heard extensive evidence about the reasons for the amputations, including expert testimony that it can be a normal consequence of paraplegia that patients become depressed and lose the ability to care for themselves.
The plaintiff underwent the amputations after suffering a massive infection as a result of a “full house of bedsores”.
Judge Marais said: “I am satisfied on a strong balance of probabilities that paraplegia was a major cause of the infection and the resultant loss of the penis.”
He added: “It is clear that the plaintiff’s home situation was far from ideal. He did not have many appliances to make life easy and he had a rather rudimentary wheelchair and cushion. There are suggestions that there was extremely bad behaviour from a brother who terrorised the plaintiff.”
Soman said there had been a marked increase in the scale of damages awarded to victims of wrongful action by the police, with recent awards of several million rands.
@SABC axes commissioning reformer
Ferial Haffajee
The SABC has axed a high-profile consultant and the right-hand man to its programming director, Mandla Langa. The surprise termination of Alby James’s contract might now jeopardise the processing of more than 700 proposals from independent producers received by SABC1 last week.
The programme pitches were the first made in line with a revolutionary new commissioning system designed by Langa and James.
James was putting in place a new system of appraising the proposals when he was given his marching orders last week – leaving a lacuna in the expertise necessary to complete the work which producers have waited for.
Industry watchers suggest that James was fired because the new commissioning procedures are set to end the graft that has beset the SABC and ensured that a few favoured companies enjoy a virtual monopoly.
A source close to the SABC charged that “Alby James is caught up in a storm not directed at him, but against the commissioning procedures that would have ensured the SABC function as a transparent and accountable organisation”.
The industry grapevine was abuzz this week with rumours that James had been fired. SABC representative Enoch Sithole confirmed that James’s contract had been terminated.
The hand of the broadcaster had been forced, said Sithole, because James could not produce a work permit when asked to do so.
In a broadside against Langa, Sithole said: “Whoever employed him must be the one who misled him.”
James’s lawyer, Andrew Murphy of Webber Wentzel Bowens, is contesting the SABC’s decision.
“We have given them [the SABC] until Friday to withdraw the termination,” said Murphy.
If the SABC does not withdraw the termination, the lawyers will take the broadcaster to court where they will argue that James has a temporary resident permit of a business type which allows him to provide consultancy services in South Africa.
Because James is a consultant, it was apparently not necessary for him to have a work permit in addition to his residence permit. The SABC confused his status when it fired him.
The letter terminating James’s services refers to him as an “employee” and not as a “consultant” – an error which Murphy says is fundamental. Sithole said this week it was illegal to employ any foreigner without a work permit.
It has taken the SABC more than a year to realise that James’s tenure was apparently illegal. He has been working as a consultant to Langa on various projects.
“What we find strange is that it should up come up now. The SABC was quite happy to take him on initially,” said Murphy.
The brouhaha about the British consultant highlights a power struggle at the broadcaster.
As Langa has tried to flex his muscle and add meat to the bones of the job he took over last year, other SABC tsars and tsarinas have rallied against his attempts to win greater control of programming. The commissioning of programmes is a multimillion-rand business and is highly coveted and contested at the SABC.
It is understood that Thaninga Msimango, the head of SABC2, and Theo Erasmus, the head of SABC3, have objected vociferously to attempts to restructure programming at the SABC because that would mark a fundamental power shift.