Pretoria - In what is deemed to be a groundbreaking judgment, the court has ordered the Road Accident Fund (RAF) to financially compensate the widow and children of a man who died by suicide after he was earlier involved in a motorbike accident.
The Western Cape High Court found that although the man decided to take his own life, the accident left him in so much pain and mental despair that he was driven to suicide.
Judge James Lekhuleni found that there was a proven link between the accident and the suicide and that the RAF was thus liable to pay spousal compensation to his family.
“The evidence showed that the deceased was suffering excruciating pains arising from the motor vehicle accident. The court has little doubt that the injuries and the pain that the victim was going through affected him tremendously and compromised his thinking ability,” the judge said.
Even though the deceased’s act of suicide may be said to have been deliberate, the judge said, the weight of the evidence proves on the probabilities that the deceased’s ability to make an informed judgement was compromised and impaired to a material degree by the unending excruciating pain, stress-related issues and depression caused by the accident.
His ability to make a balanced decision was deleteriously affected.
The widow, who is not named in the judgment, to provide the family with privacy, earlier turned to court to claim maintenance following her husband’s death. The court however, turned down her claim.
She now again approached the court to appeal against that ruling.
The husband, identified only as Mr V, died by suicide two years after he was involved in the accident in which he had suffered multiple orthopaedic injuries to his body.
He did issue a claim against the fund at the time, but before his claim was finalised he took his life.
His widow held the RAF liable for her claim for loss of support and for that of her minor children. The fund defended the matter and disputed that it was liable as he had died by suicide.
The wife described the deceased as her “knight in shining armour” prior to the accident.
She testified that, workwise, he was one of the hardest workers she had ever known. Everyone who met him couldn’t believe what he could do. In 1995, he qualified as a plumber and obtained his plumbing certificate.
He built up a successful plumbing business and the wife assisted her husband with the bookkeeping of the growing business.
She described him as a loving and hands-on father who always made sure that his daughters enjoyed their childhood lives. He was a hard-working father, and according to her, there was a time when he earned much more than people with degrees, because he was so industrious.
She stated that her husband was sociable and loved riding motorbikes with his friends on Saturdays. In June 2014, he was involved in a motor vehicle accident while riding his friend’s motorbike alongside the beach road in Bloubergstrand.
The accident profoundly affected him psychologically, particularly in his profession as a plumber and handyman. He feared losing his leg as a result of his injuries and also feared how he would manage to do his work as a handyman/plumber without a leg.
He was distraught about his business. The treating doctor told them he would save the leg but that it was going to be tricky; that it was going to be an arduous healing process and he might suffer pain after that.
The widow said the injuries left her husband significantly physically impaired. He suffered from ongoing pain after the accident and, according to her, he battled to work.
He couldn’t pick up his children as he used to, and it was very difficult for her and their offspring.
The husband complained to her that if he was already experiencing so much pain at such a young age, what would happen if he was older?
She said he was no longer the man she had married, but in spite of constant pain, still tried to give his best.
But as hard as he tried, he couldn’t do everything he needed to. As a result, they had to reduce their standard of living.
His mental health deteriorated and he was constantly depressed.
“He did not want to believe that he was depressed or that depression existed. He did not believe in psychologists. Instead, he would say, ‘I had a hard day’,” the wife said.
On the day that her husband ended his life, she dropped the children off at school and went to see a Christian counsellor in their neighbourhood about his mental health.
While she was there, her husband killed himself.
Pretoria News