Have you been involved in a motor vehicle accident?  Let Bobroff’s professional and efficient attorneys handle your Road accident fund claim to get you the outcome you deserve.
The risk of having an accident in South Africa is high, and in the event that you are involved, you need the best possible legal advice. 

Motor vehicle accident attorney

If you have suffered injuries in a motor vehicle accident, you need to call in attorneys who have experience in both legal and medical matters.  Our attorneys are trained in all aspects of personal injury cases and have assisted many clients with road accident fund claims.

Below is information about your rights in terms of the Road Accident Fund and steps to take in the event of an accident.  All Road Accidents in which personal injury is sustained due to negligence on the part of a driver is covered by the Road Accident Fund Act 56 of 1996.

The compensation available to victims has been shockingly reduced by the Road Accident Fund (RAF) Amendment Act 2005 implement 1 August 2008. Provided a victim can prove negligence on the part of a driver of the vehicle which caused the accident resulting in the injury, the following compensation is claimable from the RAF:

1.    Actual loss of income from the time of the accident until the claim is finalized.

This is usually proved by the production of Certificates from your employer, or if you are self-employed from your financial statements. It often occurs that a victim was about to take up employment but could not do so on account of the injury or if the victim was a student and as a result of the injury could not complete the years studies and would therefore would enter the job market one or more years later.

The actual loss is calculated, vouched for and obtained and is capped at a maximum of approximately R180 000.00 per annum.

Promotion prospects which probably would have but did not materialize due to the injury, and the resultant loss of expected increased income is also claimable.

2.    All your medical and hospital expenses from the time of the accident until the day on which your claim is finalized.
Even if your Medical Aid has paid these expenses you are still entitled to claim this from the RAF, although your Medical Aid may well require you to furnish an undertaking through us that you will refund them whatever medical expenses you recover from the RAF and which were paid by your Medical Aid.

The Medical Schemes act together with any contractual documents between you and the medical aid governs the relationship between you and your medical aid. Your medical aid is obliged by law to see to it that you receive a copy of the rules setting out your rights, benefits and duties.

You are also entitled in terms of that act to be given advance written notice of any change in your benefits or any other conditions affecting your membership.

Your attorney will call for all these documents and advise you as to whether you are obliged to reimburse the medical aid any amount recovered or at all.

Should your attorney be of the opinion that you have an obligation to refund any portion of the medical costs recovered, you should always insist, prior to agreeing to such undertaking that your Medical Aid agrees to be responsible for the pro rata legal costs you incur in claiming and on the same basis that you are charged.  It would be most unjust for a medical aid to expect you to take the risks and incur the costs of court proceedings without the medical aid agreeing in advance to pay a pro rata contribution towards the expenses involved as also to agree to cover a pro rata portion of the costs awarded against you if your court action is unsuccessful.

3.    Future loss of income subject to a maximum of R180 000 per annum (this amount is increased annually in accordance with the inflation rate).

This is the most complex part of your claim. To properly investigate, formulate, calculate and claim the future loss of income in a sense requires the Expert Medico Legal Attorney to become closely acquainted with the client's life circumstances.

In the case of a young child or student it will be understood how difficult it is to look into a crystal ball and try and convince the court what lifetime career such an individual would have followed. Naturally this becomes easier where one is dealing with a University student studying to become a professional. 

Whether that person would have become successful and the extent to which they would have achieved in turn depends on a huge number of other circumstances including family background and history of achievement, geographical location, pre-accident health and family financial circumstances.

In the case of a victim already involved in a career, extensive consultation is required with the employer/supervisor/work colleagues as to pre and post accident work performance and prospects.

The starting point is to establish what this person would have done during their life with regard to a career and what would they have earned.

The second stage is to have the victim assessed by a whole range of medical and para medical experts including but not limited to orthopods, neurosurgeons, plastic surgeons, vascular surgeons, pulmonologists, cardiologists, urologists, radiologists, psychiatrists, neuro psychologists, neurosurgeons, neurologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, prosthetists, industrial psychologists, ophthalmologists and gynaecologists.

Full disclosure of all pre-existing medical conditions, accidents and previous injuries are essential. Appropriate experts will assess the victim and the reports will deal comprehensively with the nature and extent to which the victim’s health and life have been affected by the injuries. These reports are then utilized eventually by the industrial psychologists and the probable future loss of earnings calculated by an Actuary yielding the bottom line future loss of income.

4.    Estimated Future Medical Expenses Payable At State Health Care Rates
The medico legal experts detail all medical and ancillary medical care which may be required for the rest of the victim’s life and this is claimed. The RAF is not obliged to pay a cash amount and invariably issues an undertaking to pay such expenses in respect of treatment necessitated by the injury sustained in the accident as and when the expenses are incurred.

The problem however of course is that in respect of all claims flowing from accidents after the 1 August 2008, the RAF will pay Private Health Care tariffs, which are approximately 25% of private medical and hospital costs (see our home page for details of our Constitutional Court challenge against these unfair limitations).

5.    General Damages and the Loss of Amenities of Life
From time in memorial persons who suffered bodily harm as a result of the wrongful act of another would receive compensation for the pain and suffering which the injury had and would cause them.

This principle if first to be found in the Gemmorah; the system of Law developed by the Jewish people in Biblical times, and carried through to Greek, Roman and modern times.  It is found in the legal systems of all civilized Countries.

Given that no one can feel the pain of another and that pain cannot be seen, weighed, measured or displayed, legal systems start off with an arbitrary amount of money being awarded for different types of suffering.

These amounts are adjusted for inflation and a system of precedent – case examples is built up and referred to in various Legal Text Books and Law Reports.

It is therefore important that victims should describe in detail to their examining or treating doctors, to their spouses, employers and co-workers, the pain that they suffer, so that this be reflected in medico legal reports as also in court testimony.

South African courts are very conservative and victims of personal injury receive little compensation in respect of pain and suffering when compared to the substantial damages awarded elsewhere, particularly in the USA where the jury system results in greater sympathy and fairness. The South African Government has effectively removed the right of all road accident victims to compensation for pain and suffering flowing from accidents after the 1 August 2008 (see our home page for Road Accident Fund Amendment Act and also Constitutional Court Challenge).