| Wed 9 Feb 2005, 11:05 | | Mine's plot to cheat boy |
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Mine`s plot to cheat boy
By Nalisha Kalideen
After a seven-year legal battle, a mother has exposed a conspiracy by a mining house, a neurologist and several teachers to cheat her brain-damaged son.
As a result of his family`s tireless efforts, Pieter Ras was awarded R1 626 924 in damages, plus costs, after he received a severe shock while living in a house owned by Associated Manganese Mines of South Africa (Assmang), a multibillion-rand mining company.
Johannesburg High Court Judge Dirk Marais found that Assmang had conspired with witnesses to deny the boy`s claim that he had become mentally deficient because of its negligence.
Assmang will launch an application for leave to appeal on Monday against this judgment, which was handed down last month.
The claim was filed by Stephanus Jacobus Ras on behalf of his son, but was driven by Nellie Ras, the boy`s mother. This week, Mrs Ras told The Star of their seven-year battle for justice.
Pieter was shocked by electric cables in 1996 when he was 9, but Mrs Ras said the family started legal action only two years later, when it became clear that the mine wouldn`t help her son.
Assmang contested the claim that Pieter`s problems had been brought on by the electrical shock, saying instead they were the result of a brain injury that had occurred while he was still in the uterus.
Pieter is now 19.
But Judge Marais found that testimony by the teachers of Black Rock School, which is owned by the mine, and a neurologist was false or unbelievable and `consistent with an express or tacit conspiracy to assist the defendant (Assmang)`.
According to papers before the court, the Ras family were living in the residential area of Black Rock Mine, in the Northern Cape, in 1996 when Pieter received a shock.
Judge Marais rejected Assmang`s defence and found that Pieter`s mental deficiency was not the result of an injury before birth.
`Pieter`s birth was normal, with no abnormalities found or recorded relating to the infant. Pieter was born at term. His developmental milestones were normal,` he said.
He went on to acknowledge the testimony of Pieter`s nursery school teacher and family doctor that he was an average child with no neurological abnormalities before the electric shock.
However, Judge Marais found the testimony of Pieter`s teachers at Black Rock School to be false and engineered in Assmang`s favour.
He noted in his judgment that the school and Assmang had a close relationship, as the company supported the school.
The former principal of Black Rock School, Johan Louw, was unreliable. He had testified that before the accident, Pieter was receiving remedial teaching and that his academic performance was below average.
But in his judgment, Judge Marais noted that during the trial it had been pointed out to Louw that the school records did not show that Pieter was receiving remedial teaching before the accident.
`My overall impression of Louw is that it would be dangerous to rely on his evidence,` said the judge.
He also found that Pieter`s after-school karate teacher, Hannes Schutte, had lied when he said Pieter had been well enough to attend lessons the day after the shock. Schutte had told the court he had not noticed Pieter demonstrating any unusual behaviour.
Judge Marais noted that Schutte was employed by Assmang.
During the electric shock, Pieter had grabbed onto an electric cable, and his right hand had become covered in blisters. This would have prevented him from doing karate.
Pieter`s injuries had not been disputed, Judge Marais found.
`I can only attribute the incorrect recollection of Schutte, seven years after the incident ... to a misplaced desire to assist the case of the defendant.`
Schutte`s evidence had been coloured by bias towards his employer.
Schoolteacher Riana Prinsloo had lied to the court when she denied that she had notified Pieter`s mother that while in class he would stare blankly into space and was unaware of what happened around him, said the judge.
Her evidence was `born of a desire to make common cause with and (to) assist the defendant (Assmang)`.
Judge Marais said that during the trial he was worried that Black Rock teachers were in a conspiracy with Assmang to testify falsely.
`I had a growing concern that the witnesses from the Black Rock mining community - and the Black Rock teachers were part of that community - were demonstrating, at best for them, a tacit common front against the plaintiff,` Judge Marais said in his judgment.
He later went on to say that the evidence of Bloemfontein neurologist Dr David Erasmus, to whom Mrs Ras took her son in August 1996, had been altered.
She had informed Erasmus of the many problems Pieter had experienced after the shock.
Judge Marais noted that Erasmus`s notes repeatedly suggested the complaints were present before the electric shock.
Erasmus had altered his notes of the consultation with Pieter and his mother and had added the words `before the electric shock` to the notes after the interview.
`At the time that the notes were written, there was no suggestion of litigation against the defendant (Assmang) or that the defendant was in any way to blame for the consequences of the electric shock,` Judge Marais said.
He could justify Erasmus`s decision to falsify his notes because he had done so `pursuant to an express or tacit conspiracy with other persons favourable to the defendant`.
Counsel for both parties will appear in the Johannesburg High Court on Monday, when Assmang will apply for leave to appeal against the judgment.
