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[2011] ZAECMHC 1
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Hlomza v Minister of Safety and Security and Another (1548/07) [2011] ZAECMHC 1 (20 January 2011)
IN
THE HIGH COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA
EASTERN
CAPE DIVISION : MTHATHA
CASE
NO. 1548/07
In
the matter between:
NTOMBENKOSI
HLOMZA
…................................................................
Plaintiff
and
THE
MINISTER OF SAFETY AND
SECURITY
…....................................................................................
1
st
Defendant
THE
STATION COMMISSIONER,
CENTRAL,
MTHATHA
…............................................................
2
nd
Defendant
JUDGMENT
GRIFFITHS,
J.:
[1] This is an action for damages which has proceeded in
a somewhat unusual manner and which may be described, for reasons
which
I shall set out hereinafter, as a "trial without a trial".
The plaintiff has sued the defendants, both in her personal
capacity
and in her representative capacity on behalf of her four minor
children, for damages arising out of an incident which
occurred on 13
February 2005 during which her husband and the father of the
aforementioned minor children ("the deceased")
shot the
plaintiff in her upper jaw and neck whereafter he shot and killed
himself with the same firearm.
[2] Based hereon the plaintiff has claimed under four
separate heads, namely:
Claim A
: Personal damages for herself arising
from her having been shot by the deceased;
Claim B
: Loss of support for the plaintiff
personally as a consequence of the death of the deceased;
Claim C:
Loss of support for the minor children
as a consequence of the death of the deceased;
Claim D
: Funeral expenses in respect of the death
of the deceased.
[3] The matter was defended and ultimately came before
me on trial. When the matter commenced Mr. Dukada who, with Mr.
Hinana, appeared
for the plaintiff, informed me during the course of
his opening address that the parties had agreed that the questions of
liability
and quantum of damages were to be separated. I accordingly
ruled, pursuant to the provisions of rule 33(4), that liability would
be dealt with separately from the question of damages. Mr. Dukada
further indicated that in view of the various admissions which
the
defendants had made in their plea, he was of the view that no
evidence was required on the part of the plaintiff as a
prima
facie
case had been made out and the defendants ought to be put
on their defence. The only "evidence" which was placed
before
me by consent was a certain provincial order (number 3 of
1998) which dealt with the regulation of possession of state owned
firearms
by members of the South African Police Service ("SAPS")
when not on duty. Thereafter, Mr. Dukada closed the plaintiff's
case.
[4] Mr. Mbenenge who, with Miss da Silva appeared for
the defendant, thereafter indicated that the defendants likewise did
not intend
to lead any evidence and would be closing their case in
turn. He further intimated that there were, in essence, two causes of
action,
the first being the action for personal injury to the
plaintiff and the second being the action for loss of support of the
plaintiff
and the minor children as a consequence of the deceased
having shot himself and thereby committing suicide. He further
informed
the court that the defendants conceded the personal injury
claim of the plaintiff but that the claim for loss of support would
be resisted on the basis that the plaintiff had not made out a case
for such relief and that the admissions made by the defendants
in
their plea were not sufficient to support such a claim. Mr. Mbenenge
thereafter closed the defendant's case and the matter proceeded
to
argument on this basis.
[5] It appears to have been common cause on the
pleadings, or at the very least between the parties when the matter
came to trial,
that the deceased had at all material times been in
possession of a police issue regulation firearm which he had in his
possession
whilst he was not on duty. It was also common cause that
the plaintiff and the deceased were married. However, it was not
admitted
on the pleadings that the plaintiff and the deceased were
the parents of the minor children. This aspect was not alluded to by
Mr. Dukada in his opening address or during argument, nor was it
dealt with by Mr. Mbenenge. In the minutes of the pretrial conference
it was stated that each party had sought admissions from the other
but that the defendants would not make any further admissions
other
than those contained in their plea. It appears therefore either that
the parties were at
ad idem
that the sole issue between the
parties was to be that which I shall refer to hereinafter or that
these issues were to be stood
over to be dealt with along with the
question of quantum. In any event, because of the view that I take of
the matter this aspect
will become irrelevant.
[6] The admissions made on the pleadings which have
relevance to the matter are therefore of importance. In this regard
the defendant
pleaded as follows:
"4.9 The Second Defendant and other policemen had a
legal duty;
4.9.1 to protect the Plaintiff from being injured by the
deceased.;
4.9.2 to take all reasonable steps to prevent the
deceased from shooting the Plaintiff;
9.
Ad paragraphs 7 and 8
9.1 The defendants admit only that-
9.1.1 the shooting of the plaintiff was caused by the
negligent conduct of the second defendant and other members of the
Service.
9.1.2 the negligent conduct consisted in the commission
of acts and/or omissions set out in sub-paragraphs 7.1, 7.3, 7.4,
7.5, 7.7,
7.10, 7.11, 7.13, 7.16, 7.17, 7.18 and 7.19 of the
paragraph under reply; and
9.1.3 members of the Service, including the second
defendant, ought to have –
(a) foreseen the shooting of the plaintiff by the
deceased; and
(b) prevented the shooting by seizing the firearm from
the possession of the deceased.
9.2 The rest of the allegations made herein are denied
and the plaintiff put to the proof thereof.”
[7] The relevant subparagraphs of paragraph 7 of the
particulars of claim which were admitted were as follows:
"
7.1 they failed to seize the official firearm from
possession of the deceased despite previous reports of violence made
by the Plaintiff
to them against the deceased;
7.2 ……..
7.3 they became aware that the deceased had threatened
to shoot the Plaintiff and/or manifested threats of violence towards
the
Plaintiff but failed to take steps to seize the official firearm
from possession of the deceased;
7.4 they allowed the deceased to continue possessing the
official firearm well knowing that the deceased was unfit to possess
it;
7.5 they failed to take measures to reassess the fitness
of the deceased to possess an official firearm after having received
reports
of the deceased's acts of violence from the Plaintiff;
7.6 they allowed the deceased to be in possession of an
official firearm even after working hours well knowing that the
deceased
had previously threatened to shoot the plaintiff;
7.7 they allowed the deceased to be in possession of an
official firearm even after working hours well knowing that the
deceased
had adopted a violent attitude towards the plaintiff and was
ill tempered;
7.8 ............
7.9 ……….
7.10 they failed to institute a disciplinary inquiry
against the deceased which would have rendered the deceased unfit to
possess
a firearm, especially when not on duty;
7.11 they failed to constitute a Firearms Committee in
terms of the provisions of Provincial Order 3/1998 upon receiving
complaints
of assault and pointing of a firearm from the plaintiff
and threats of violence by the deceased;
7.12 …………..
7.13 they failed to report the violent conduct of the
deceased towards the Plaintiff to higher authorities in the South
African
Police Service;
7.14 …………..
7.15 ……………
7.16 they failed to seize the official firearm from
possession of the deceased well knowing that the Magistrate, Mthatha
had granted
a Protection Order against the deceased at the instance
and in favour of the plaintiff;
7.17 they authorized or allowed the deceased to possess
the official firearm when not on duty:
7.17.1 without having first investigated whether the
deceased was fit to possess a firearm; and
7.17.2 without investigating whether the deceased was
having a stable family life or not;
7.18 they granted the deceased permission to possess the
official firearm or allowed him to possess it when not on official
duty
without the prescribed official procedures having first been
complied with;
7.19 they failed to take measures to protect the
Plaintiff from being injured by the deceased when they had means and
ability to
do so; and
7.20 ………….
7.21 …………."
[8] Both Mr. Dukada and Mr. Mbenenge appeared to agree
that the main issue to be decided was whether or not the admissions
made
by the defendants in their plea were sufficient to sustain a
claim in delict as against the defendants for loss of support of the
plaintiff and the minor children as a consequence of the deceased's
suicide. Mr. Dukada argued that as the plaintiff's claim in
this
regard is based upon a failure or omission by the police to seize the
official firearm from the deceased's possession after
they had
received reports of violent conduct relating to the deceased and as
the defendants had admitted that the failure to remove
the firearm
from the deceased was an act of negligence, this was sufficient to
found liability. This was especially so, he submitted,
as all that
the plaintiff needed to establish was 1% negligence on the part of
the servants of the first defendant. He further
submitted that the
plaintiff's case is not
per se
based on the suicide of the deceased as the suicide, so
he submitted, was a consequence of the failure or omission by the
police
to seize the official firearm from the deceased after such
reports of his violent conduct had been made to them.
[9] In addition to the foregoing, Mr. Dukada submitted
that this matter is on all fours with the case of
Minister
of Safety and Security and Another v Madyibi
1
.
His argument was that because the facts were similar and because the
appeal court has decided that in those circumstances the
defendant
ought to be visited with liability for loss of support of the
dependents of a policeman who committed suicide with his
service
firearm in such circumstances, the above-mentioned admissions were
sufficient to found such liability
in casu
,
and there was no need for further evidence from the plaintiff. As I
understand his submission, once negligence in the form of
failure to
remove a firearm from the policeman concerned under circumstances
where there was a duty to do so is admitted, the defendants
are
liable for the consequences thereof. In essence, his submission
amounts to this: accepting that the employees of the first
defendant
were negligent in failing to remove the firearm from the deceased, it
follows that each and every action the deceased
thereafter committed
with the firearm which caused harm to another, must,
ipso
facto
, be laid at the door of the defendants.
I shall deal more fully with the Madyibi matter later in this
judgment.
[10] Mr. Dukada's submissions fail to take into account
that there is a further aspect of the inquiry under the Aquilian
action,
that being whether or not the particular harm complained of
is causally connected to the negligence admitted to by the
defendants.
The defendants have admitted negligence on the part of
the police for failure to remove the firearm in circumstances where
they
had a duty to do so as a consequence of the complaints made by
the plaintiff and the other factors admitted to, but specifically
distanced themselves from any knowledge that the deceased might have
had any form of suicidal tendency or that the police could
have had
any knowledge that he might have possessed such tendencies. All the
admissions in this regard clearly relate to the claim
for damages for
personal injury to the plaintiff and not to the claim for loss of
support which is a claim for pure economic loss.
The concession by
the defendants that they are liable for any damages that might arise
from the plaintiff's personal injury claim
is clearly only a
concession that there is a causal link between any such damages and
the failure of the police to remove the firearm.
This does not amount
to an admission that there is a causal link between such failure and
the claim for loss of support and this
still had to be established by
the plaintiff.
2
[11] When dealing with causation in the law of delict it
is necessary to deal with two distinct problems. The first aspect is
the
question of factual causation and relates to the question as to
whether the negligent act or omission in question caused or
materially
contributed to the harm giving rise to the claim.
3
The second aspect is whether or not the omission is
linked to the harm sufficiently closely or directly for legal
liability to ensue
or whether the harm is too remote. In the
Skosana
case
, Corbett JA referred with approval to
Professor Fleming, "
The Law of Torts
",
fourth edition, p.169, in this regard as follows:
"
The first involves what may broadly be
called the 'factual' question whether the relation between the
defendant's breach of duty
and the plaintiff's injury is one of cause
and effect in accordance with 'scientific' or 'objective' notions of
physical sequence.
If such a causal relation does not exist, that
puts an end to the plaintiff's case, because no policy can be strong
enough to warrant
the imposition of liability for loss to which the
defendant's conduct has not in fact contributed.
The second problem involves the question whether,
or to what extent, the defendant should have to answer for the
consequences which
his conduct has actually helped to produce. There
must be a reasonable connection between the harm threatened and the
harm done.
As a matter of practical politics, some limitation must be
placed upon legal responsibility, because the consequences of an act
theoretically stretch into infinity. The task is to select those
factors which are of sufficient significance to justify the
imposition
of liability and to draw a boundary along the line of
consequences beyond which the injured party must either shoulder the
loss
himself or seek reparation from another source
."
4
[12] The question of causation is complicated in the
present matter by the fact that I have no evidence before me from
which I can
draw factual conclusions or inferences which may point to
the existence of the necessary causal link as between the failure of
the police to remove the firearm and the suicide of the deceased
using the very same firearm. In this regard the court cannot have
regard to facts not averred in the pleadings or raised in court in
evidence, or by way of admission by counsel, as to do so would
be a
serious misdirection
5
.
When an admission is made in a plea the fact so admitted is
eliminated from the issues to be tried and the plaintiff is then
relieved of the duty of bringing evidence to establish that
particular fact
6
.
To what extent can a court take into account admissions and/or
inferences to be made therefrom in relation to an aspect which
has in
fact been denied? In my view the courts would be very loath, in the
absence of evidence, to extend such admissions (and
inferences
therefrom) to form a basis for a finding that a fact denied by the
defendant should be regarded as proven.
[13] In this regard it would be as well to repeat what
the function and purpose of pleadings are. They are said to be
threefold
7
:
"(a) They must ensure that both parties know
what are the points of issue between them, so that each party knows
what case
he has to meet. He or she can thus prepare for trial
knowing what evidence he or she requires to support his own case and
to meet
that of his opponent. "The object of pleading is to
clarify the issues between the parties and a pleader cannot be
allowed
to direct the attention of the other party to one issue, and
then at the trial, attempt to canvass another."
(b) Pleadings are to assist the court by defining
the limits of the action. However, in the absence of agreement
between the parties
the court may allow amendments at any stage of
the proceedings……..
(c) Pleadings place the issues raised in the
action on record so that when a judgment is given such judgment may
be a bar to the
parties litigating again on the same issues, enabling
a party to raise a defence of res judicata if the other party
attempts to
raise the same issues.
"
[14] Turning then to the facts (insofar as they may be
so regarded as I only have before me allegations which are admitted
by the
defendants) it is clear that the defendants, as stressed
above, have steered clear from any admission which might, in any
manner,
be construed as an admission of any knowledge whatsoever on
the part of the police that the deceased had any form of suicidal
ideation
or tendencies. The defendants have made it clear that the
admissions only extended to knowledge on the part of the police that
the deceased had threatened the plaintiff with violence previously,
including a threat to shoot her, that a protection order had
been
granted by a magistrate against the deceased in favour of the
plaintiff and that, in these circumstances, the police had failed
to
follow the necessary procedures and duties available to them, and
imposed upon them, and the various Acts such as the Police
Act , the
Firearms Protection Act et cetera. These, it will be seen, relate
only to the potential injury to the plaintiff through
the use of the
firearm in question and not to anyone else and, in particular, not to
the deceased himself.
[15] In these circumstances there is little doubt, and
one can fully understand the concessions made by Mr. Mbenenge in this
regard,
that the defendants ought to have foreseen as a reasonable
possibility that the deceased might have shot the plaintiff with the
firearm. Clearly, both factual and legal causation exist in this
regard in that, but for the omission of the police to remove the
firearm from the deceased, such a shooting probably would not have
occurred. In addition, as against the background painted by
the
aforesaid admissions by the defendants, in my view a reasonable man
in the position of the police in this case would clearly
have
foreseen that such an eventuality was probable and likely to occur
and would thus have taken steps to remove the firearm from
the
deceased. In these circumstances, there is little doubt that such an
omission on the part of the police constituted an actionable
wrong
8
.
[16] Can the same be said with regard to the suicide? In
other words, can it be said that, on the factual admissions made by
the
defendants in this matter, a causal connection, both factual and
legal, exists with regard to the actions of the deceased in using
his
police issue firearm in killing himself?
[17] As regards the question of factual causation, this
relates to the question as to whether the negligent act in question
(
in casu
, the failure
by the police to remove the firearm from the deceased) caused or
materially contributed to the harm (
in casu
,
the deceased's suicide) giving rise to the claim (
in
casu
, loss of support for the plaintiff and
the minor children).
[18] In
Skosana’s case
Corbett JA referred to
Prosser,
Law of Torts, fourth edition, at 237
in this
regard as follows
9
:
"
A cause is a necessary antecedent: in a very
real and practical sense, the term embraces all things which have so
far contributed
to the result that without them it would not have
occurred. It covers not only positive acts and active physical
forces, but also
pre-existing passive conditions which have played a
material part in bringing about the event. In particular it covers
the defendant's
omissions as well as his acts
."
[19] Corbett JA proceeded to state the test for factual
causation as follows;
"
The test is thus whether but for the
negligent act or omission of the defendant the event giving rise to
the harm in question would
have occurred. This test is otherwise
known as that of the causa (conditio) sine qua non and I agree with
my Brother VILJOEN that
generally speaking (there may be exceptions -
sec Portswood v Svamvur,
1970 (4) SA 8
(RAD) at p. 14) no act,
condition or omission can be regarded as a cause in fact unless it
passes this test (see Da Silva and Another
v Coutinho,
1971 (3) SA
123
(AD) at p. 147)."
[20] Applying this test to the present facts is made
more difficult as a consequence of the fact that I have no evidence
as to precisely
how these events occurred, as to the deceased's
general situation and otherwise. For example, it may well be that the
evidence
may have revealed that, notwithstanding the omission to
remove the police issue firearm, the deceased may nonetheless have
killed
himself, for example, by the use of another firearm he may
have had in his possession. Whilst this proposition may be criticized
as being speculative, in my view it cannot be so as there is simply
no evidence before me at all in this regard. There are only
admissions of certain facts but no evidence of the general situation
which prevailed in the plaintiff's and the deceased's household
at
the time. In van Duivenboden’s case the submission was made
that even if the police had removed the firearms in question
from
Brooks, he might nevertheless have shot the respondent in that case
because he may have acquired another firearm in the given
circumstances
10
.
Nugent JA found that, on the evidence in that matter, that such
questions were on the facts "questions that are so speculative
that they should be discounted from the inquiry". He made such a
finding because the evidence in that matter clearly disclosed
the
unlikelihood, or improbability, of Brooks having acquired a separate
firearm in that matter.
[21] In the present matter I do not believe that such a
question is necessarily speculative. Had the parties placed facts
before
me by way of a stated case, or evidence, this decision would
have been made somewhat easier. I am left to simply rely on
admissions
made by the defendant which the plaintiff claims are
sufficient for me to make a finding that such factual causation
exists. For
all I know, the deceased may have been in possession of a
second, or other, licensed (or even unlicensed) firearm upon which he
could have called to kill himself had the police issue firearm been
removed from him timeously.
[22] The only factor which militates against this line
of reasoning is the fact that the defendant has admitted that, but
for the
omission on the part of the defendant to remove the firearm,
the plaintiff herself would not have been shot. This being so, it
seems that it must be inferred as a matter of probability that the
deceased did not have available to him other firearms which he
could
have used to kill himself. However, it must be remembered that
shooting the plaintiff and killing himself are two entirely
different
matters. Had he been bent on committing suicide, he could easily have
done so without the use of this, or another firearm.
He could, for
instance, have cut his wrists or jumped off a high-rise building or
employed another method of killing himself. It
is for these reasons
that I do not believe that, on the admissions before me, I can
conclude that the test for factual causation
as postulated above can
be decided in favour of the plaintiff.
[23] Even if I am wrong in this view, the plaintiff
still has to establish the second leg of causation, namely legal
causation.
As stated by H. J. Erasmus J in the case of
Brooks
v Minister of Safety and Security
11
:
" [
41] The dependant's claim for loss of
support is a claim for pure economic loss and, when dealing with the
negligent causation of
pure economic loss, it is well to remember
that whereas physical injury to the person or property is prima facie
unlawful, causing
economic loss is not. One of the factors to be
taken into consideration in determining the legal duty in regard to
pure economic
loss is whether the defendant knew or subjectively
foresaw that his negligent conduct would cause damage to the
plaintiff. Such
foreseeability is often an important, even a
decisive, factor in deciding whether wrongfulness has been
established, but it is
not in itself enough."
[24] It should also to be borne in mind that, whilst the
general manner of its occurrence must be reasonably foreseeable, the
precise
or exact manner in which the harm occurs need not be
foreseeable.
12
[25] On the admissions made by the defendants, can it be
said that such an event as the suicide of the deceased was reasonably
foreseeable?
If it were, there is no doubt that such would constitute
an actionable wrong. In this regard, as mentioned above, Mr. Dukada
placed
great reliance in argument on the appeal court judgments in
the Madyibi and van Duivenboden cases. There are, however, two
extremely
important distinguishing factors between the facts of this
case and the facts of those cases. The first is that evidence was led
in those matters and the court was not left to rely simply on
admissions. The second is that it is clear from the judgments in
those matters that the police were aware that the deceased (in the
Madyibe case) and Brooks (in the van Duivenboden case) had previously
committed acts which, in the former case, indicated a suicidal
tendency and in the latter case a tendency towards violence as
against his wife and in general.
[26] With regard to the
Madyibi
case
, a copy of the judgment of the Court of
first instance was, by agreement, handed up to me. It is quite clear
from that judgment
that the evidence led before the court
a
quo
in that matter revealed a litany of
violence on the part of the deceased. Petse ADJP described this as
follows:
"
The aforegoing is then a summary of the
sorry tale and chilling account related by the plaintiff about her
married life which demonstrates
that plaintiff was, over the years,
subjected to sustained physical and emotional abuse at the hands of
the deceased."
[27] Furthermore, during the course of this history of
abuse and violence, the deceased in that matter attempted to kill his
wife
by locking all the exit doors in the house whilst both of them
were inside, releasing highly inflammable gas from a gas cylinder
and
lighting a match. They were apparently rescued from certain death by
the police.
[28] As may be seen, this is a far cry from the facts
before me in the present matter. The limited admissions as set forth
above
cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be equated with the
evidence that was led in the Madyibe matter which clearly showed
that
the deceased in that matter had exhibited a history of sustained
physical and emotional abuse, was generally violent and had
demonstrated that his violent streak was not only focused on his
wife. He had committed acts which, to the clear knowledge of the
police, demonstrated his clear instability, a violent disposition and
that he was quite capable of taking his own life.
[29] In the present matter I have the limited knowledge
that the deceased exhibited a violent attitude towards the plaintiff,
that
he had threatened to shoot her, that there were complaints by
her of assault and pointing of a firearm and that there was a
protection
order against the deceased in favour of the plaintiff. I
have no knowledge as to the extent of the assaults and threats, how
many
times they occurred, over what period they occurred, what degree
of violence accompanied such assaults and/threats etc. In particular,
I have absolutely no evidence whatsoever as to the state of mind of
the deceased and as to the degree of instability which accompanied
these various assaults and threats. These, and various other factors,
which almost certainly would have emerged during the course
of
evidence, are not present in this matter.
[30] This paucity of information coupled with the fact
that the defendants have explicitly denied any knowledge whatsoever
of any
form of suicidal tendency on the part of the deceased or
anything related thereto has placed me in a position where I find it
extremely
difficult to draw any conclusions with regard to the
question of foreseeability, and whether or not a reasonable person in
the
position of the police would have foreseen the likelihood of the
deceased committing suicide using the firearm which they ought
to
have removed from him.
[31] In these circumstances I am of the view that the
plaintiff has not established both factual and legal causation with
regard
to the claims for loss of support and funeral expenses
relating to the suicide of her husband, the deceased. Because the
plaintiff
has failed to produce sufficient evidence in this regard, I
believe that the correct order with regard to these claims would be
absolution from the instance.
[32] With regard to the question of costs, Mr. Mbenenge
has submitted that this should be reserved for decision by the court
ultimately
hearing the question of quantum of damages. Mr. Dukada has
submitted that costs ought to follow the result. I agree. The
plaintiff
has been substantially successful with regard to her claim
for personal injuries and the extra costs (such as they might have
been)
with regard to the unsuccessful claims are likely to be
unquantifiable and relatively small. In addition, it is common cause
that
the claim for personal injuries was only conceded on the morning
of trial. The parties are agreed that costs of two counsel are
warranted in this matter.
[33] The order which I make is accordingly as follows:
1. The defendants are ordered to compensate the
plaintiff for any damages that she may prove to have suffered as a
consequence of
her having been shot by the deceased on 13 February
2005;
2. As regards claims B, C and D, the defendants are
absolved from the instance;
3. The defendants are ordered to pay the plaintiff's
costs, such costs to include the costs of two counsel.
JUDGE OF THE HIGH COURT
HEARD ON : 23 NOVEMBER 2010
DELIVERED ON : 20 JANUARY 2011
COUNSEL FOR PLAINTIFF : Mr Dukada Sc with
: Mr Hinana
INSTRUCTED BY : V. V. Msindo & Ass.
COUNSEL FOR DEFENDANTS : Mr Mbenenge Sc with
: Ms Da Silva
INSTRUCTED BY : State Attorney
: c/o Gwebindlala & Ass.
1
2010
(2) SA 356
(SCA)
2
Van
der Spuy v Minister of Correctional Services
2004 (2) SA 463
(SE) at
473 B - D
3
Minister
of Police v Skosana
1977 (1) SA 31
(A) at 34
4
See
further: Van der Spuy v Minister of Correctional Services (supra)
471 - 477; International Shipping Company (PTY) Ltd. v Bentley
1990
(1) SA 680
(A) at 700E – 701C
5
Groenewald
NO and Another v Swanepoel
2002 (6) SA 727
(E) at 727 A - B
6
Erasmus
"Superior Court Practice" at page B1 - 144J and
authorities there cited.
7
Beck's
"Theory and Principles of Pleading in Civil Actions"
(sixth edition) at pages 43 -- 44
8
See:
Minister of Safety and Security v van Duivenboden
2002 (6) SA 431
(SCA); Van der Spuy v Minister of Correctional Services (supra);
Minister of Safety and Security v Carmichelle
2004 (3) SA 305
(SCA);
Minister of Safety and Security v Madyibi (supra).
9
At
page 35
10
At
paragraphs 28 -- 29
11
[2007] ZAWCHC 51
;
2008
(2) SA 397
(C) at paragraphs 41
12
Van
der Spuy v Minister of Correctional Services (supra) at 476