Legal battle unfolds: RAF faces scrutiny over dismissed R10-million claim for child's injuries

9 Dec 2024

A Road Accident Fund claim of close to R10m was dismissed by the Gauteng High Court last month – but the plaintiff’s attorney wants to appeal the case. Meanwhile, RAF CEO Collin Letsoalo thinks it’s all a ploy to use the RAF as a cash cow.

Renier van Rensburg Attorneys filed an application on Monday this week for leave to appeal against a recently dismissed Road Accident Fund (RAF) claim of almost R10-million for head injuries sustained by a girl during a taxi accident in 2017.

The claim is for compensation for loss of future earnings, but RAF CEO Collins Letsoalo has described it as a “meritless case” and an attempt to cynically pilfer money from the RAF.

Case details

The case concerns a 17-year-old claimant who was involved in an accident at the age of nine while travelling in a taxi with her mother on 7 June 2017. She sustained head injuries in the accident and was rushed to a hospital, where she showed symptoms of amnesia, but was discharged within a few days.

According to the original judgment document, released on Monday, 18 November 2024, advocate Aad den Hartog, who was acting as plaintiff on behalf of the girl, sought a claim of “almost R10-million” for loss of earnings. The girl’s head trauma had allegedly caused brain damage, which has since weakened her performance in school and rendered her “not able to achieve university education and thus limits her future earning capacity,” the judgment states.

Judge Senyatsi ordered that the case should be dismissed, due to unconvincing medical evidence. The hospital records of the girl’s injuries were incomplete and much of the evidence relied on a virtual medical examination four years after the accident took place.

“The fate of the evidence and the medico-legal report of all other expert witnesses must, in my view, fail,” states the judgment.

But the application of request to appeal criticises the ruling for allegedly failing to properly acknowledge the girl’s continuing health issues, including heart palpitations, periods of dizziness and frequent headaches. The application also emphasises the girl’s worsened cognitive function, such as her lack of focus and memory problems.

The application states that the court over-emphasised the fact that the medical records were incomplete, without engaging in corroborating evidence, such as post-accident symptoms.

The court had also discounted the fact that all parties had signed off on the fact that the girl had suffered a “complicated traumatic brain injury of severe degree” in a previous joint settlement agreement – a fact which the appeal document says the court never contradicted.

“No explicit rejection of the settlement agreement was made in judgment, nor was any reasoning provided for deviating from the factual basis established therein,” the application reads.

RAF scepticism

A few days before the application was filed, Letsoalo had some harsh words for the case.

“Renier van Rensburg Incorporated would have got R2.5-million out of this R10-million – which is why they can lie like this. They are lying to get the money,” said Letsoalo at an RAF media briefing on 5 December 2024.

“This can’t be by mistake, by the way. I don’t know what fraud is, if this is not fraud. It’s a fraudulent case.”

Read more: How Road Accident Fund cases are crippling the Gauteng High Court

The RAF has received severe criticism due to its backlog of claims, poor financial management and operational inefficiency. Letsoalo pointed a finger at lawyers who fought for RAF claims, whom he believed had attempted to stonewall his attempts to reform the RAF, so they could keep milking it for claims.

Read more: After the Bell: Take Road Accident Fund claims with a pinch of salt

All the while, Letsoalo said, advocates undersold their clients by taking a quarter of the money won by claims, merely by signing a few papers.

“There is no need for lawyers in the RAF system if we simplify,” he said.

While law firms did sometimes take 25% of the amount won in a claim, it took more than simply signing a document, said Gert Nell of Gert Nell Attorneys, an advocate who specialises in RAF claims.

“An attorney has to work for his money. He can’t, under the Contingency Fees Act, just charge a percentage of a fee,” he said.

“So all that I, as a practitioner, am doing is to balance the scale. Because on the one end, Mr Letsoalo is standing on a soapbox and is reporting all these half-truths to the media and to the public, and all the while they (the RAF) are busy undercutting or undermining the victims of road crashes,” he told Daily Maverick.

Nel said there were several large problems within the RAF, both in terms of efficiency and legality.

“(The RAF is) not paying foreigner claims – which has also been found to be illegal – and maybe more (commonly known) is the fact that they’re not paying any clients or victims that are represented by medical aid,” he said.

“So, the RAF is trying to balance the books and manipulate the figures subject to illegal measures they take, or so-called ‘reforms’.

“We’re not opposed to any changes that the Department of Transport or the RAF intend to introduce, as long as it’s in terms of the law and does not infringe on the constitutional rights of road accident victims,” he said. DM

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Case details

RAF scepticism