IN THE HIGH COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA
(EASTERN CAPE DIVISION, GQEBERHA)
CASE NO: 4459/2024
In the matter between:
LOUISA MARIA GREYLING Plaintiff
and
ROAD ACCIDENT FUND Defendant
JUDGMENT
(l) REPORTABLE : YES / NO
(2) OF INTEREST TO OTHER JUDGES : YES/NO
(3) REVISED .
DATE SIGNATURE
POTGIETER J
INTRODUCTION
[1] The plaintiff has instituted an action for damages against the defendant (‘RAF’) in
respect of bodily injuries that she sustained in a motor vehicle collision on 8 August
2021 on the N2 national road between Gqeberha and Humansdorp when the vehicle in
which she was a passenger, driven by her husband, left the road and overturned.
[2] The defendant recently filed a special plea of prescription, on the basis that the
plaintiff failed to comply with the provisions of section 24(1)(b) of the Road Accident
Fund Act, 56 of 1996 (‘RAF Act’) relating to the lodgement of her claim.
[3] The parties sought an order in terms of rule 33(4) separating the issue of
compliance from the other issues in the case. I acceded to this request, and the matter
proceeded only in respect of the issue of compliance. The parties prepared a stated
case, and the plaintiff compiled a bundle of documents for purposes of adjudicating this
issue.
[4] The following relevant fa cts appear from the stated case. The plaintiff’s attorney
caused the plaintiff’s claim to be delivered to the RAF by a courier under cover of a
letter dated 8 March 2024. The RAF acknowledged receipt of the claim documents by
means of a letter dated 18 March 2024, but required further documents and information,
and returned the claim documents to the plaintiff’s attorney. The plaintiff’s attorney
delivered an updated RAF 1 claim form, together with the necessary annexures, by
courier to the East London offi ces of the RAF on 13 June 2024. An employee of the
defendant, L.Xolisa, signed an acknowledgement of receipt of the relevant waybill at
14:52 on 13 June 2024. Summons was served on the defendant on 18 November 2024.
[5] Section 24(1)(b) of the RAF Act regulat es the lodgement of claims in the
following terms:
‘A claim for compensation and accompanying medical report under section 17(1) shall –
…
(b) be sent by registered post or delivered by hand to the Fund at its principal, branch or
regional office, or to the agent who in terms of section 8 must handle the claim, at the
agent’s registered office or local branch office, and the Fund or such age nt shall at the
time of delivery by hand acknowledge receipt thereof and the date of such receipt in
writing.’
[6] The sole issue for determination presently is whether the lodgement of the
plaintiff's claim by a courier qualifies as delivery by hand in term s of section 24(1)(b).
The issue is a novel one. No decided case in point has come to my attention.
[7] Mr. Pienaar, on behalf of the plaintiff, indicated when the matter served before
me yesterday, that there might be a decision on this point in the Western Cape High
Court. However, during argument today, he indicated that despite his best efforts, which
included enquiries among his colleagues at the local bar and those practising in Cape
Town, he was unable to find any decided case in point. He added that h is Cape Town
colleagues indicated that they were unaware of any decision in their division or
elsewhere dealing with the present issue.
[8] Mr. Pienaar referred me to the matter of Chetty1, where the lodgement of the
claim was effected a day before the date of prescription by the plaintiff’s attorney, who
placed the documents in a mailbox in the foyer at the RAF offices in Durban. The
mailbox was provided by the RAF for the reception of documents, and claims thus
submitted were treated as hand -delivered. The attorney travelled to the RAF officers
1 Chetty v Road Accident Fund 2009(5) SA 193 (NPD).
from Chatsworth in order to hand deliver her client's claim. This was on Thursday, 28
March 2002, the day before Good Friday. She found the offices closed when she
arrived at approximately 14:00 and was refused acces s by a security guard in the foyer,
who instead directed her to the RAF mailbox after she had explained her predicament to
him. The situation was that the claim had to be delivered by the following day, which
was a public holiday, and the attorney was mind ful of the fact that the offices would be
closed on the public holiday. It also appeared that the RAF’s Durban office had,
unbeknown to the attorney, developed a custom to close at noon on the day before a
public holiday. The court was thus called upon to decide whether depositing the claim in
the mailbox amounted to hand delivery thereof in terms of section 24(1)(b). The court
answered this in the affirmative. Mr. Pienaar submitted that by analogy, delivery by
courier a fortiori amounts to delivery by hand, especially where receipt is acknowledged
in writing, as in the present case. He accordingly asked for the special plea to be
dismissed together with ancillary relief.
[9] Mr. Dlamini, on behalf of the RAF, submitted that the requirement that prior
notice must be given to the RAF before action may be instituted has been circumscribed
in section 24(1)(b), which provides two options to the claimant, namely delivery of a
claim either by registered post or by hand. He submitted that delivery by means of a
courier does not comply with these requirements. Couriers are independent parties and
not the agents or employees of the claimant. As he put it, the courier’s hand is not the
hand of the claimant. Mr. Pienaar retorted that the real issue is whether the claim was
received by the defendant, which fact is common cause. He expressed the view that
delivery by courier is a better means of lodging the claim than transmitting the claim by
registered post.
registered post.
[10] To recap, the issue in this matter is whether the lodgement of a c laim by means
of a courier amounts to delivery by hand as envisaged in section 24(1)(b). The matter of
Chetty2 is not of direct assistance in determining this issue. The ratio decidendi of that
2 Note 1 above.
case is that depositing claim documents in a mailbox provided for that purpose by the
RAF amounts to hand delivery in terms of section 24(1)(b), in that the RAF was placed
in possession of the documents, given that the requisite elements of possession,
namely animus decidendi and detentio, were established. I find i t unnecessary to deal
with that matter in any more detail, save to express some reservation about equating
delivery in terms of section 24(1)(b) to ‘placing in possession’ as the court did on the
strength of the decision in Ficksburg Transport3. The latter case dealt with the exercise
of an option to purchase immovable property and indicated that in the absence of any
contractual provision to the contrary, the legal position is that the offeror must be
informed that the option is being exercised, i.e., it must be brought to the knowledge of
the offeror. The court held that the provision in the contract being considered in that
case, requiring the ‘delivery of a written notice to the owner’ 4 to exercise the option in
question must be understood to encompass that ‘the ordinary and popular sense of
delivering a thing to another is to hand over the thing to him’ 5 (approving the dictum to
that effect in R v Rudd 1912 TPD 195 at 199). The court found that delivery of the notice
exercising the option by leaving it with an employee at the home of the offeror in the
temporary absence of the latter did not amount to a valid exercise of the option. The
express wording of the relevant clause requires notice to be given to the offeror, and the
meaning to be given to the wording is that the offeror must be placed in possession of
the notice, i.e., it must be handed personally to the offeror or his authorised
representative6. It is clear from the judgment that this interpretation applies to the
particular wording and context of the option being dealt with by the court in that case. I
am not persuaded that this context -specific interpretation could, without more ado,
am not persuaded that this context -specific interpretation could, without more ado,
simply be applied to section 24(1)(b). In my respectful view, the term ‘deliver’ in the
section should not be interpreted as requiring ‘personal service’ (i.e. handing over to
‘him’ as applies in the case of exercising an option in general or in the specific
circumstances of Ficksburg Transport ), but rather as handing over at the proper
3 Ficksburg Transport (Edms) Bpk v Rautenbach & n Ander 1988(1) SA 318 (A).
4 The contract was in Afrikaans and required that the option ‘ skriftelik uitgeoefen moet word deur lewering
van n skriftelike kennisgewing aan die eienaar tot die effek dat die opsie uitgeoefen word …’.
(emphasis added)
5 At 332G.
6 At 334D. The term used in the judgment for ‘authorised representation’ is ‘gevolmagtigde’ .
address, which in terms of the section is the principal, branch, or regional office of the
RAF7.
[11] Returning to the present matter, the issue raised by the RAF is that couriers do
not fall within the category of those empowered to deliver claim documents. This is,
however, not apparent from the wording of section 24(1)(b), which does not limit, in any
way, those who are authorised to deliver claim documents. The section only
circumscribes the recipients and the place of delivery of the claim. No reason
commends itself why there should be a limitation on who may deliver claims. It is clearly
only important that claims are properly delivered. By whom this is done is of no moment,
and there is no need or justification to impose limitations in this regard. Furthermore, the
RAF Act is social legislation with the primary purpose of giving the greatest possible
protection to claimants who enjoy the right of access to justice guaranteed by section 34
of the Constitution. 8 The provisions of the RAF Act must be interpreted as extensively
as possible in favour of third parties to afford them the widest possible protection.9
[12] In my view, there is no justification for interpreting section 24(1)(b) to exclude the
delivery of a claim by a courier. There is no basis in reason, principal or logic for
adopting such an interpretation. I find some support for this stance in the decisio n of
John & Another v RAF 10 where it was not challenged that delivery of a claim by means
of the Document Exchange (Docex), also a form of courier service that delivers
documents for its members, (which included firms of attorneys and at the time the
Multilateral Motor Vehicle Fund the predecessor to the RAF), was proper and consistent
with the requirements of the Multilateral Motor Vehicle Accidents Fund Act, 93 of 1989,
which is substantially similarly worded to the provisions of the RAF Act.
7 Given that the RAF is a corporate entity personal service would not be possible and delivery would
inevitably be to a natural person who might not be a ‘gevolmagtigde’. It, however, remains necessary
to record that the meaning attached to the term delivery (‘lewering’) in Ficksburg Transport does not
finally settle the meaning of that term in s24(1)(b) which must be interpreted in the context of the RAF
Act. The issue must therefore remain open in my view.
8 Road Accident Fund v Masindi 2018(6) SA 481 (SCA) at para 13.
9 Road Accident Fund v Busuku 2023(4) SA 507 (SCA) at para 6.
10 John & Another v Road Accident Fund 2000(1) SA 459 (TPD).
[13] It follows that the plaintiff has, in the circumstances, complied with the
requirements of section 24(1)(b) in so far as the delivery of her claim by a courier is
concerned, and that there is no merit in the defendant's special plea.
[14] The plaintiff has asked, in the event of the special plea being dismissed, for
counsel’s costs be awarded on Scale C. This is not justified. The issue in this matter
was confined and not complex. It is accordingly fair and reasonable to allow counsel’s
costs on Scale B.
[15] In the result, I make the following order:
(a) the defendant’s special plea is dismissed;
(b) the defendant is ordered to pay the costs of suit, including the costs of
counsel on scale B;
(c) the remaining issues in the action are postponed sine die.
______________________
D.O. POTGIETER
JUDGE OF THE HIGH COURT
This judgment is handed down electronically by circulation to the parties or their legal
representatives by email. The date for hand-down is deemed to be 05 March 2026.
APPEARANCE
Counsel for the Plaintiff: Adv B Pienaar, instructed by Jock Walter Inc., 246
Main Road, Walmer, Gqeberha
Counsel for the Defendant: Mr. N Dlamini, instructed by State Attorney, 29
Western Road, Central, Gqeberha
Date of hearing: 04 March 2026
Date of delivery of judgment: 05 March 2026