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[2012] ZAGPJHC 283
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Feinberg v Wesbank (31869/2011) [2012] ZAGPJHC 283 (16 October 2012)
IN THE SOUTH
GAUTENG HIGH COURT
JOHANNESBURG
CASE NO:
31869/2011
DATE: 2012-10-16
In
the matter between
FEINBERG,
M
Applicant
and
WESBANK
Respondent
J U D G M E N T
WILLIS, J
:
[1] This is an
application for rescission of a default judgment. Default
judgment was granted against the applicant on 01 November 2011.
[2] The subject matter of
the judgment was a lease agreement entered into between the parties
in terms of which the applicant leased
a 2006 BMW M6-E64 motor
vehicle from the respondent.
[3] The vehicle in
question is hardly some little jalopy that a poor mother has to drive
around to get her children to school in
order to ensure that they
progress through life. It was a vehicle that cost R1.214
million. The monthly instalment
was R16 862 per month and
the applicant is still, despite the default judgment, driving around
in the vehicle.
[4] There is a saying, a
famous proverb, that those whom God wishes to destroy he first makes
mad. If there is to be rescission
of a default judgment in this
matter, then as far as I am concerned, certainly as a Judge, I should
be a candidate to be sent to
a lunatic asylum.
[5] Here you have a
situation - it is common cause - that she had received service of the
summons. Her defence, by the way,
is that she was too poor to
instruct an attorney, too poor when she leases a BMW for R1.200
million, too poor to go and see an
attorney! She also protests that
she is subject to debt review and she has not been properly notified
that the debt review has
been terminated!
[6] As I have said in a
matter of
Nedbank v Seyfertt
, which was
unsuccessfully taken on appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal, we
cannot have a situation in this country and we cannot
survive
economically if we are to make of it a debtors’ paradise.
What kind of debtors’ paradise would it not
be, if an
intelligent, well-educated person living in Bryanston can take out a
lease of a motor vehicle, not pay for it and expect
to be allowed to
continue to drive around in luxury? If ever I have seen a case
where there is no merit whatsoever in the
application for default
judgment, it is this one.
[7] The following is the
order.
The
application for rescission of a default judgment is dismissed with
costs.
---oOo---