Nearly nine years after UK stuntwoman Olivia Jackson was badly injured while filming a movie in South Africa, she is struggling to receive compensation from the Road Accident Fund (RAF).
Jackson suffered devastating injuries, which led to the amputation of her arm, during the filming of the world-renowned sci-fi action film Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, during a scene shot outside Pretoria in September 2015.
She subsequently instituted a claim for more than R40 million in damages against various stakeholders in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, which included a claim against the fund.
During a legal battle in 2019, the RAF disputed that the claim fell under the ambit of the RAF as the injuries were sustained during a stunt scene in the film.
At the time, the court ruled that it did fall under the RAF Act.
Almost a year later, the issue regarding liability was before the court. This time, the court ruled that the fund was 100% liable for the damages Jackson could prove she had suffered.
A few months later, in September 2020, the fund issued an application for leave to appeal both judgments. It later withdrew its application.
In March 2021, the parties met for a pretrial conference to pave the way for the next court hearing to determine the amount payable to Jackson. The RAF and Jackson’s counsel said they each had several expert witnesses they wanted to call.
In 2023, before the trial to determine the damages was to take place, the court ruled that the RAF had to make an interim payment to Jackson (the amount is not known).
No payment was forthcoming and a sale in execution of some of the fund’s assets was scheduled for May this year, to pay the interim damages awarded to her.
In a desperate bid not to pay, the RAF has turned to the court to have the leave to appeal applications against the 2019 and 2020 judgments reinstated.
Judge Norman Davis had harsh words for the fund because only now that it was in a tight corner to pay the interim payment and faced a trial regarding the rest of the damages, it wanted to reinstate the leave to appeal.
He questioned how the fund had willingly taken part in proceedings paving the way for a damages trial and even consented to an interim payment to Jackson and, suddenly, wanted to appeal the previous judgments.
In turning down the application, he slapped the fund with the legal bills of all the parties involved.
Jackson was known across the world as a stunt double for top actresses such as Charlize Theron.
She suffered a multitude of injuries, including head injuries, a punctured lung, facial injuries and an amputated finger when things had gone wrong during one of the action scenes. Jackson’s left arm was amputated months because of complications.
The scene was shot along the N4 extension near Pelindaba.
Jackson had been driving at high speed on a racing motorbike while a camera fitted onto a mechanical crane was filming her. That was, in turn, fitted to a vehicle, which drove towards her while filming her from the front.
The sequence had been planned so that the camera would start filming from a position close to the road surface and would then be lifted to pass over her head at close range, allowing her to pass safely underneath.
But things had gone wrong when it started to rain and the camera was lifted too late. The camera had knocked off the motorbike and shattered nearly every bone in her body.
She had spent 17 days in a coma.
The trial regarding the amount of damages payable to her is expected to take place later this year.
Pretoria News
zelda.venter@inl.co.za