A full Bench of three judges is to hear the contempt of court application brought by Discovery Health against the financially stressed Road Accident Fund (RAF) following preliminary hearings earlier this month.
Discovery Health launched the application against the RAF and CEO Collins Letsoalo in November 2023 because of the failure of the fund to implement a previous court order related to the payment of past medical expenses of fund claimants, reports MoneyWeb.
The contempt of court application is being opposed by the RAF and Letsoalo, who argue the RAF should not be liable for past medical expenses where the injured person is a medical scheme member.
However, the fund has been unsuccessful in convincing the courts to accept this argument in several High Court judgments on this issue.
RAF yet to resume payments
Discovery Health CEO Dr Ron Whelan said on Monday that the RAF has still not resumed payments of valid claims to medical scheme members, despite the courts’ declaring unlawful the fund’s directive to halt payments of these.
Whelan said this was in direct breach of the ruling enforced by the Supreme Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court.
The judgment handed down on 27 October 2022 by Judge Mandla Mbongwe had declared unlawful the RAF directive issued on 12 August 2022 – and then the RAF unsuccessfully applied to both the Supreme Court of Appeal and Constitutional Court for leave to appeal this.
Whelan said given the RAF’s “concerning conduct”, Discovery Health had no alternative but to seek an order declaring the RAF and its CEO in contempt of court.
The application was partly heard in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) earlier this month.
Whelan said that after opening submissions made by Discovery Health’s counsel and the reply by RAF counsel, the presiding judge consulted the Deputy Judge President and a decision was made to postpone the hearing and for it to rather to be heard in front of a full Bench of three judges.
Discovery Health is currently awaiting a confirmed date for the full Bench hearing.
Not the first contempt application against CEO
“This is not the first contempt of court application against the RAF CEO (Letsoalo) in recent months,” said Whelan.
“He was held in contempt on another matter (Mazibuko v the RAF) on 12 October 2023. Importantly, Discovery Health was not involved in that whatsoever, and the two matters are entirely unrelated.”
On 12 October 2023, Judge Elizabeth Kubushi, in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria), found Letsoalo in contempt of court for an order issued on 29 January 2018, relating to a claim submitted to the RAF by accident victim Nelson Cebiso Mazibuko in Mpumalanga.
Kubushi ordered that Letsoalo be committed to imprisonment for contempt of court for three months, suspended for one year, providing he complied with the order within 15 days of her order.
But shortly afterwards, Letsoalo said he knew nothing about the matter, that the attorneys must “prove where they actually served me papers”.
He said the RAF would apply for a rescission because neither he nor the RAF was aware of it.
Writs
In an application to the High Court last year for a stay of execution of writs issued to the Sheriff of the High Court, the RAF again unsuccessfully argued that it should not be liable for past medical expenses of someone injured in an accident where that person belonged to a medical scheme.
The writs allowed the Sheriff to remove and sell the assets of the RAF at its Centurion head office because it failed to obey judgments and orders to pay 62 motor vehicle accident victims a total of R33.6m.
Earlier this year, at the RAF’s request, Acting Judge Irene de Vos provided the reasons for the dismissal of the RAF’s application with costs on a punitive scale.
The RAF had urgently brought the application to stay the execution of these writs, pending applications to rescind the court orders, which it had yet to launch.
De Vos said the the urgent application premised on an argument rejected by the Supreme Court of Appeal against the tide of 10 years of precedent in South Africa’s courts, a deviation from legal principle “and three existing judgments on this exact point”.
She said the RAF application was also the second urgent stay against the exact same writs, and that the RAF has not cured the defects in the case it lost before Judge Norman Davis.
Wolmarans Incorporated Attorneys MD Gavin Roberts, acting for the 62 RAF claimants, said on Monday the RAF wants to take this matter on appeal, and the application for leave to appeal is scheduled for April.
The irony, he added, was that the RAF lost when its application was heard before Davis, and the fund abandoned a planned appeal against his judgment when the Constitutional Court judgment was published.
In the interim, Roberts executed a writ and sold RAF assets, recovering half of the amount owed on those cases, he said.
Moneyweb article – RAF running out of road in litigious battle against fund claimants (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Discovery asks court to declare RAF in contempt
Judge rebukes RAF for disobeying court orders in hospital claims
RAF and its CEO face contempt of court suit