The Road Accident Fund frequently advertise that people will be better off if they go to the Road Accident Fund themselves and save on the lawyer’s fees.  They don’t mention that you will then be seeing their experts, and that you will never have the benefit of experts who may well be more sympathetic to plaintiffs than many of the experts who work for the Road Accident Fund.  They don’t mention the cases where their claims handlers have offered R35 000,00 to clients of ours, who had a brain injury, and who we have taken to court and who we have got R1,2 million for the client at court.  

I just thought though, when reading through medico legal reports on the weekend - which I do most weekends - that I would give some key examples of an actual case, and how the experts that work for the Road Accident Fund would describe the same injury.  In short our client was, as a result of the accident, rendered a partial paraplegic.  Our experts say that not only does he now have sexual dysfunction, neurogenic bladder and occasional bowel incontinence, but that his life has been totally devastated by this accident and “there is no prospect whatsoever of any further meaningful recovery.”  That is what our orthopaedic surgeon had to say.  The orthopaedic surgeon that works for the Road Accident Fund goes out of his way to detail how our client had previously hurt his left wrist and as a result had lost a job before.  In other words, he is really not that much worse off now that he is partially paralysed, because he had already lost his job before for a an injury to his left wrist.  

When it comes to his work options – has his life been devastated?  No, the expert who works for the Road Accident Fund says, “His work options have been further curtailed by the injuries sustained in the accident but he is suitable for certain types of sedentary and light physical work.”  The expert describes the impact of the client’s partial paralysis as being “a disruption of the claimant’s lifestyle.”  He says however it is very positive because he can now walk with the aid of crutches, and he does not have to sit in a wheelchair anymore and “his mobility can be improved by further treatment.”  That is just a routine example of what the specialists who work for the Road Accident Fund would generally say.  Being partially paralysed is just a disruption of your life.  Walking with crutches is better than using a wheelchair and gosh, you had a sore wrist in the first place, so now being partially paralysed cannot really ruin your life.  That is what we sort out in court, that is where we get results and that is why the Road Accident Fund cannot, and should not, be doing claims both for and against people.  They cannot possibly achieve appropriate results if they use doctors that are so biased against claimants that being paralysed is a mere disruption of your life!