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Accident fund agrees to settle with paralysed lawyer
THE case in which a young lawyer is suing the Motor Vehicle Accident Fund of Namibia for some N$17,5 million after a life-changing car accident left him paralysed almost eight years ago was partly settled in the High Court in Windhoek this week.
Lawyer Tamani Ndauendapo’s neck was broken when a car he was travelling in overturned on the gravel road between Omaruru and Omatjete on April 6 2002. The neck injury left Ndauendapo paralysed – unable to use either his legs or arms. The accident happened about a month before he turned 28.
Ndauendapo was working as a legal practitioner at a private law firm in Windhoek at the time of the accident. Now using a motorised wheelchair that he controls through movements with his head, he is currently employed at the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority (Namfisa).
Although he has been able to continue working, Ndauendapo is however facing major future medical and other expenses and a large projected loss of future earnings as a result of the accident.
Ndauendapo sued the MVA Fund for N$17,518 million to compensate him for the losses he suffered as a result of the accident and to help cover his expected future medical expenses and the constant care he now needs.
The MVA Fund initially not only disputed that it was liable to pay Ndauendapo anything, but also filed a counter-claim against him in which it demanded that he should pay back about N$662 000 that the fund had previously paid to him. Most of the money that was paid to him was to cover medical expenses.
The fund claimed that money had been paid to Ndauendapo erroneously. It based this stance on a claim that the accident had not been caused by negligence on the part of the driver of the vehicle that overturned, but had been caused by a front tyre burst.
The driver and other passengers in the car initially claimed that the accident happened after the front left tyre of the car had burst. They later reversed their position and claimed that their earlier opinion about the cause of the accident had been wrong.
According to the driver, the accident happened when he drove too fast on an unfamiliar gravel road and encountered a sharp turn in the road that he then did not manage to navigate.
As the car left the road, a load bang at one of the front wheels brought him under the impression that the tyre had burst, he claimed.
A trial on Ndauendapo’s claim against the MVA Fund was scheduled to be held before Judge Colin Lamont, who is from the South Gauteng High Court in South Africa, in the High Court in Windhoek this week.
On Tuesday, though, lawyers Dave Smuts, SC, representing Ndauendapo, and Adrian de Bourbon, SC, representing the MVA Fund, told Judge Lamont that the case had been partly settled. The MVA Fund is now agreeing to pay Ndauendapo the damages that he suffered in the accident.
The fund’s undertaking to pay the damages to Ndauendapo was made an order of the court.
The rest of the case, dealing with the amount that Ndauendapo would be paid, was postponed to a date that is not yet determined. Judge Lamont ordered that if Ndauendapo and the fund are not able to settle the issue of the amount that the fund will be paying him by June this year, a date must be arranged for the hearing of evidence on the amount.
The Chief Executive Officer of the MVA Fund, Jerry Muadinohamba, said yesterday that the fund was relieved that the matter could be settled.
He said the case was settled following extensive discussions with Ndauendapo’s lawyers and after the fund had obtained advice from senior legal counsel. The fund and Ndauendapo’s lawyers will be working together over the next weeks to do an assessment of the claim and recalculate it, and to agree on an acceptable figure for damages that are to be paid, he said.
