UK actress in long wait for SA injury compensation

Nearly nine years after UK stuntwoman Olivia Jackson was badly injured while filming a movie in SA, she is struggling to receive compensation from the Road Accident Fund (RAF). A Pretoria News report notes Jackson suffered injuries which led to the amputation of her arm, during the filming of the sci-fi action film Resident Evil: The Final Chapter – shot outside Pretoria in 2015. She instituted a claim for more than $2.1m in damages against various stakeholders in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria), which included a claim against the fund. In 2019, the RAF disputed that the claim fell under its ambit as the injuries were sustained during a stunt scene in the film, but the court ruled it did fall under the RAF Act. A year later, the issue regarding liability was before the court. This time, the court ruled the fund 100% liable for the damages Jackson could prove she had suffered. In September 2020, the fund applied for leave to appeal against 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. In 2023, before the trial was to take place, the court ruled 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, to pay the interim damages awarded to her. In a bid not to pay, the RAF 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, it wanted to reinstate the leave to appeal. He turned down the application.

Judgment

Full Pretoria News report in The Star