Pretoria - Ailing former Springbok hero Joost van der Westhuizen will probably die soon if he does not receive the R385 665 he invested in his former attorney’s trust fund immediately, his advocate told a judge on Friday. The judge agreed.
“I have found in the main judgment that he needs the money to stay alive. He requires the funds for ongoing medical treatment on a daily basis,” Gauteng High Court Judge Leister Adams said.
For a second time the judge confirmed that Joost is entitled to the money he had left in the trust account of Robert Klinkenberg, the attorney who acted on his behalf when he and his wife Amor Vittone divorced several years ago.
Joost said he and Klinkenberg had an agreement that the money he received from time to time would be paid into the trust account to pay for his day-to-day expenses.
Klinkenberg, however, committed suicide in December, allegedly leaving a shortfall on his trust account of up to R200 million. Joost claimed that Klinkenberg either misappropriated his money or stole it and that the Attorney’s Fidelity Fund thus had to pay him.
But the fund’s stance is that the Attorney’s Act prohibited it from doing so, as the money was invested with Klinkenberg, which fell outside the ambit of the act.
While sympathetic to Joost’s situation, the fund’s hands were tied and he had to wait in line to claim from Klinkenberg’s (insolvent) estate.
Judge Adams recently found that the money was not an investment, and given Joost’s medical condition, the fund had to pay him out.
On Friday the fund turned to court to ask for leave to appeal against this order. Judge Adams was adamant that no other court would differ with his findings and turned down the application.
But counsel for Joost asked the court to find that Joost’s case was an exceptional one and that in the event of the fund taking the matter further, he would still receive his money. Orders which are being appealed are usually suspended pending the outcome of the appeal.
That would have meant Joost would have had to wait years for his money.
This would be too late, his advocate, Jaap Cilliers SC, told the court. He said Joost would probably die if the fund persisted in its refusal to pay. “I find their attitude extremely unconscionable,” Cilliers said.
Judge Adams ordered that if the fund took the matter further on appeal, it may not suspend his earlier order that Joost should receive his money immediately.
The judge said the fund did not dispute that Joost needed the money to stay alive. It only argued that he had other assets he could use, such as his R4m property.
“I am of the view that this is an exceptional circumstance,” the judge said, ruling in favour of Van der Westhuizen.
His lawyer, Ferdinand Hartzenberg, phoned Joost to tell him the good news. “While his body is ailing, his mind is as alive as ever,” he said.
Pretoria News