The Supreme Court of Appeal on Thursday dismissed an appeal by the Free State’s minister of public works, with costs, against a finding that his department had been negligent by not maintaining a road.
The provincial department appealed against a Bloemfontein High Court finding that its failure to maintain properly the R64 road between Dealesville and Bloemfontein had caused a vehicle accident on June 22 2001.
The appeals court confirmed the high court’s finding on how the accident had happened.
Four people are claiming compensation from the department as a result of the accident. According to court papers, the combined amounts are more than R18-million.
However, a court still has to decide on the claim amounts.
The appeals court judgment also found that the provincial minister’s legal representatives had made unwarranted allegations of impropriety against the trial Judge, G van Coppenhagen.
The allegations were part of the high court appeal application, but it was retracted without a proper explanation.
Van Coppenhagen, in granting the appeal to the appeals court, said that it was for this reason alone that he considered himself bound to grant leave to appeal to the appeals court.
The unanimous judgement, by three appeal judges, found that the allegations against the trial judge were groundless. ”It is unacceptable that allegations of impropriety can be made against a judge in so cavalier a fashion,” the judgment read.
”The effect of this has been that the respondents have been put through considerable and unnecessary expense, inconvenience and delay, and this court has had to expend scarce judicial resources on an appeal utterly devoid of any merit.”
The appeals court ordered the provincial minister to pay the costs of the respondents on the punitive scale as between attorney and client because of, so it found, the unwarranted allegations of impropriety.
The provincial minister thus has to pick up all the legal costs in the appeal matter. — Sapa