Opinion ID: 2555237
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: South African Law

Text: The parties also presented affidavits from South African attorneys who outlined the principles of South African law that would apply if the case were tried in South Africa. [4] Under South African law, a judge, not a jury, would decide whether defendants were negligent and, if so, the quantum of damages. In an accident, such as the one here, where a plaintiff/passenger of a vehicle is injured as a result of the alleged negligence of that vehicle's driver, the plaintiff can proceed against South Africa's Road Accident Fund [5] for the first $3000 of damages and pursue a common-law action against the defendant/driver for the remaining damages. If the plaintiff chooses not to proceed against the Fund and only pursues a common-law action, the first $3000 of damages cannot be collected against the defendant. In theory there is no artificial limit on the quantum of an award that can be returned in favor of a personal-injury plaintiff, but in reality compensatory-damage awards in South Africa are far less generous than those in New Jersey. Additionally, under South African law, consortium and punitive-damage claims are not allowed in a personal-injury negligence case. Typically, liability and damage claims are tried separately, but South African courts will entertain requests for a joint trial of those issues. The parties dispute when the case would be tried if South Africa were the forum, with dates ranging from two to six years depending on whether the liability and damage claims are tried together. Moreover, unlike N.J.R.E. 407, under South African law, subsequent remedial measures by a party may be admissible to show that a party was negligent on a prior occasion. [6] South Africa has opted out of Article 23 of the Hague Convention that would have required it to honor Letters of Request issued for the purpose of obtaining pre-trial discovery of documents as known in Common Law countries. [7] Nevertheless, under its own law, South Africa may honor letters of request for the production of evidence by any foreign jurisdiction. [8]