Pretoria - The Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, yesterday ordered that the owner of a unit in a townhouse complex in Paulshof in Sandton was liable for damages to the mother of a then 11-year-old boy suffered a severe electric shock when he opened a tap to fill a bucket of water.
Michael Dempsey offered to wash his mother’s car on the afternoon of September 10, 2015. He went to a tap outside a neighbour’s unit at the Stonebrook complex to fill his bucket.
When he touched the tap, a live electrical current flowed through it. His hand became stuck to the tap and he was shocked for one or two minutes, before the electricity inside the unit was switched off.
Michael shouted at his mother for help. When she tried to loosen him from the tap, she too, felt the electrical current. Only after the power was switched off, did she manage to save her son. He was rushed to Sunninghill Hospital because of his serious injuries.
It had emerged that a problem arose with the electricity the previous day, as the owner of the unit where the tap was situated, Mark Dembo, had new cupboards installed in the kitchen. An electrician had drilled through some of the electrical wires in the wall, damaging the Earth wiring.
Michael’s mother, Samantha Dempsey, subsequently instituted a claim for more than R3 million against the electrician, Dembo, the body corporate, and the contractor commissioned to replace the cupboards, Allan Carr, who traded as Mr Cupboard.
Carr sent two workers to start with the refurbishment on the day before the incident. They damaged the electrical wiring when they drilled into the wall. Carr then contracted an electrician to fix the problem.
Suraksha Ramlakan, who rented the unit from Dembo at the time and requested the refurbishment, told the court that when she got home later that day, she received an electrical shock when she tried to open the taps in the unit.
She contacted Etienne Mynhardt, who was Dembo’s employee and represented him, to immediately attend to the problem. When nobody came that day, she switched off the electrical supply to the unit.
The next day when she went to work the supply was still switched off.
When she returned later, she witnessed the child being severely shocked.
It is suspected that the two workers who did the refurbishment, had switched-on the electricity supply that day to continue with their work.
Mynhardt meanwhile told the court that he had phoned Dembo the night before Michael was injured and told him about the electrical problem.
But Dembo denied this and said if he knew about the problem, he would have immediately instructed a qualified electrician to repair the damage. He said he only became aware of the problem after Michael was injured.
Judge Anthony Millar found that Mynhardt did not speak the truth when he said he phoned Dembo the previous evening so that the problem could have been sorted out immediately.
But, the judge reasoned, an employer was in law vicariously liable for the negligent acts of his employee. The judge said although Dembo voiced his unhappiness with Mynhardt’s conduct in the past, he continued to employ him, thus, as his employer, he must be held liable for Mynhardt’s conduct.
Judge Millar also ordered that Carr must pay half of whatever amount Dembo is ordered to pay, as Carr’s workers contributed to the child’s injuries by switching on the power the next day. The amount of damages will be determined at a later stage.
Pretoria News