Prasa cleared of liability over woman’s ‘suicide attempt’

The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has shot down a Tshwane woman’s bid to sue the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) after she was hit by a train at the Rosslyn station in 2008.

For more than a decade, Johanna Dipuo Sithuse and Prasa have been at legal loggerheads over who was to blame for the incident.

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She says she was pushed in front of the train and Prasa says she jumped.

In 2018, the High Court in Pretoria dismissed Sithuse’s claim against Prasa but a full bench subsequently overturned its judgment, ruling it was unlikely she was trying to take her own life and that the incident could have been avoided “but for the lack of supervision of the activities of the commuters and lack of enforcement of the rules”.

This month, however, the SCA reverted to the initial stance, finding Sithuse’s story didn’t add up.

Judge Dumisani Zondi penned the SCA’s ruling with four other judges concurring. Her claim was dismissed with costs.