Court orders RAF to revive hundreds of thousands of rejected claims

Supreme Court rules RAF must allow re-lodging after stricter RAF1 rules struck down

The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has found that stricter Road Accident Fund (RAF) claim rules made it harder for road accident victims to obtain compensation, and ordered that previously rejected claims be allowed to be re-lodged.

What the court decided

The SCA held that the newer requirements for lodging claims introduced in the form known as the RAF1 and published by the minister of transport in July 2022 unfairly raised the bar for making valid claims. The court directed that claimants whose submissions were rejected under the unlawful stricter requirements must be allowed to re-lodge their claims by the end of September.

Background: Pretoria High Court and the RAF

Earlier, the Pretoria High Court had criticised the directives contained in the RAF1 form and a board notice published in the Government Gazette after several legal bodies challenged them, saying the directives made it near impossible for victims to lodge claims. The RAF appealed that earlier ruling, taking the matter to the SCA.

RAF response and next steps

Acting CEO Radikwena Phora said the fund welcomes the judgment and is studying it with legal advisors to understand its impact on operations and claims administration. The RAF will implement a comprehensive communication campaign in the coming weeks to inform claimants whose claims were rejected because of outstanding documents about how to resubmit by the end of September.

The fund also said it will engage with the minister of transport to adopt and publish a revised RAF1 form within six months.

How claimants are advised to proceed

RAF law expert and attorney Gert Nel advised claimants whose claims were rejected to provide proof that their original claim was submitted within three years of the accident and to submit as many relevant documents as required when re-submitting; additional documents can follow later.

“However, the fund’s bigger issue is ‘phantom’ claims that have secured default judgments that are now immediately payable and estimated at R 4.8 billion,”

Nel said summonses were served on the RAF, resulting in thousands of default judgments that now become payable. He added:

“Our office has court orders against the RAF for payment of these claims in excess of R100 million. There are hundreds more practitioners facing the same challenge”.

Nel also noted that the RAF Act does not make provision for re-lodging claims in matters that have already been fully ventilated in court and secured an order for payment, and urged the fund to begin paying, saying:

“The RAF needs to start paying – some of these victims had already died in the process of waiting,”

Scale of the problem

The article reports that indications are that around 600,000 claims were rejected under the new RAF1 requirements and will now have to be re-lodged and registered. Nel also highlighted an estimated R4.8 billion exposure from so-called phantom claims that have secured default judgments and are immediately payable.

What this means for claimants

• Claimants rejected for missing documents will be informed how to resubmit before the end of September.
• The RAF will work with the minister of transport to publish a revised RAF1 form within six months.
• Claimants who already obtained court orders face a separate issue around payment of default judgments, according to legal practitioners quoted in the report.

The SCA judgment restores access for many claimants to have their matters considered despite the stricter lodging requirements introduced in 2022.