Nine years ago, a group of teenagers met after school to play cards at a disused pump house near a children’s play area in Woodlands, Durban.
One of them, Riechardt Bosch, stepped back and plummeted “several storeys” down an uncovered manhole, injuring his head and back, and breaking several bones.
It took many years for the eThekwini municipality to concede liability for the accident and agree to pay 70 percent of his proven damages.
And this week, Bosch, 23, finally got a high court order and will receive almost R800 000 as compensation.
His mother, Mariette, first sued the municipality because he was underaged at the time.
In pleadings lodged with the Durban High Court, she said the municipality had been negligent in not securing the “deserted, unused vent station” on the corner of Bale Avenue and Collett Road.
She said the station was near a public park where many children often played but the station was not fenced and the manholes were uncovered.
The municipality denied that the station was not in use, saying it was “automated” and “clearly separate from the play area”.
While conceding that it was not fenced, it said Bosch had fallen as a result of his own negligence.
Bosch remembers little of that day in April 2003.
He says he stepped back and fell down the manhole. He remembers his friends asking if he was okay.
He could not respond because of blood in his mouth and then there was “nothing else”.
He does not remember being rescued.
His friends said he had been unconscious for about 45 minutes.
He spent nine days in hospital, some of them in the high care unit, and never went back to school.
Expert reports before the court said that although Bosch had recovered well from his injuries, the accident had curtailed the spectrum of job opportunities available to him.
With his level of education, they said, he was more suited to a job involving physical labour, which was not possible because he suffered back pain, could not stand for long periods of time and could not lift heavy items.
He also reported having poor concentration and becoming tired easily.
“The fall changed him,” his mother reported.
Successful
Although the municipality agreed to pay 100 percent of Bosch’s legal fees, advocate Glen Goddard argued yesterday that it should not have to pay all his costs in the second leg of the litigation – the dispute over the amount of compensation.
This was because Bosch had initially claimed R1.8 million. He had only been successful in getting 41 percent of the amount, so had not, in fact, been “substantially successful”.
However, Rob Mossop, for Bosch, said his client had been “the winner”.
“He had nothing and he walked away with R780 000. How can that not be successful?” said Mossop.
Judge Shyam Gyanda agreed, saying Bosch had been forced to take the municipality to court and was entitled to his legal costs.
