Landmark ruling: RAF ordered to compensate suicide victim’s family

In a landmark ruling handed down by the Western Cape High Court, the Road Accident Fund (RAF) has been ordered to compensate the family of a man who was said to have committed suicide as a result of a motorbike crash that saw him sustain life-long injuries.

The accident happened in Bloubergstrand on the beachfront in June 2014.

The man had instituted a claim with the RAF but ended up killing himself on 6 December 2016.

His claim was only paid out on 16 November 2018.

His wife filed a lawsuit on 17 January 2018, seeking compensation for the loss of support resulting from the same accident. She did so both in her individual capacity and as the legal representative of their children.

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The RAF contested the ability to establish a clear connection between the accident and suicide, and an initial court ruling similarly failed to identify any concrete evidence of a direct link between the accident and his act of suicide.

But the case was appealed.

Judgment

Presiding over the appeal was Judge James Lekhuleni.

In his judgment, Judge Lekhuleni declared the chronic pain resulting from the accident and the slow descent into depression negatively impacted the deceased’s ability to make a balanced decision.

“Due to the ongoing pain, the deceased became dejected, and his ability to practise as a plumber and handyman was diminished…

“He did not believe in psychologists. Instead, he would say ‘I had a hard day’,” the judge said.

He, therefore, found that the deceased had been in so much chronic pain due to his injuries, that he chose to end his life. He said that the suicide was, by such logic, directly related to the road accident.

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Judge Lekhuleni thereby ruled that the RAF should support the family. Judges Monde Samela and Nathan Erasmus concurred.

The fateful day

The deceased had been travelling by motorbike on the fateful day, when there was a crash between the motorbike and another vehicle.

It was said that he had suffered a concussion as well as a fracture to his pelvis and sacrum. The bone in his knee area also shattered.

The court heard how he, thereafter, lived in constant agony, where even painkillers stopped working.