A teacher was given the go-ahead to sue the education authorities after a learner stabbed him at school, but the department argued that it was not liable to pay compensation, as the injuries suffered by the teacher fell under the category of an injury on duty.
The Eastern Cape education department, which was sued by the teacher, Zola Ndiki, forwarded a special plea to the high court sitting in Bisho. In defending the claim, it denied liability.
The education department said the incident was an occupational injury, as envisaged in the Compensation of Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act (COIDA).
Ndiki was an educator employed by the Eastern Cape Department of Education at Nontswabu Junior Secondary School. He was stabbed by a learner, as a result of which he sustained certain injuries, both physical and psychological.
He issued summons against the defendant, his employer, claiming damages in delict. Ndiki admitted that the incident occurred when he was on duty and that he was performing his duties as an educator at the time. However, he denied that the assault fell within the scope of COIDA.
The court was told that an altercation between Ndiki and the learner ensued, and that other teachers intervened. The learner left the school premises and later returned with a knife, which he used to stab the teacher.
The education department argued that the risk of being attacked was foreseeable, because it is a regrettable reality, and that the compensation fund, under COIDA, was thus liable to pay, and not the department.
It was argued that if an employee is injured (or contracts a disease) in circumstances which arise out of his/her employment, he/she cannot sue his/her employer but must submit a claim for compensation in accordance with COIDA (which is still commonly referred to as workmen’s compensation).
The court commented that despite the apparent clarity of the provisions of the Act, COIDA (and the previous Act) has spawned a plethora of litigation which shows no signs of abating, as is evidenced by this matter.
The reason being, the court said, is that there is sometimes a fine line, or grey area, between what qualifies as an event which arises out of an employee’s employment, and hence covered by COIDA, and an event that does not.
But, the court pointed out, each case must be decided on its own facts. The court looked at previous cases, where in one case an educator was teaching learners how to throw a discus. In the process, she was struck on the forehead by a discus and seriously injured. The educator sued her employer, the MEC for Education, and on appeal, it was held that COIDA applied.
In another case, which facts are similar to the present matter, an educator instructed a learner to bring his hairstyle in line with the school’s dress code. He did not do so, and when again confronted by the educator, the learner went home and fetched a knife, and on his return, stabbed the educator. In this instance, the court also held that COIDA did indeed apply.
Acting Judge NJ Mullins said the test to be applied is, in his view, whether the injury complained of is not whether it occurred during the course of the educator’s employment (which it did) but whether it arose out of or was incidental to the employee’s employment.
“Thus, a soldier can hardly be heard to complain if, in the line of duty, he is shot, and a security guard, whose job it is to protect property from being broken into, can hardly be heard to complain if he is assaulted by persons breaking into the property.”
In turning down the department’s special plea, the judge said: “The role of an educator is to educate learners. As an educator often has to deal with large groups of learners, it goes with the territory that they, the learners, will on occasion become unruly and that friction between them and the educator will occur.”
The judge said there will always be those learners who test the boundaries. “It is for this reason that the department has rules, as do schools, governing what is, and what is not, acceptable behaviour. Incidental to an educator’s employment is the enforcement of those rules.
However, that a disgruntled learner would, or even may, assault an educator in the exercise of his/her duties is not something that arises out of his/her employment and/or is incidental thereto.”
He found that the incident giving rise to the plaintiff’s injuries was not an accident as defined by COIDA and that the special plea stands to be dismissed with costs.
Pretoria News
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