Mechanic gets R2.5m in slasher damages

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Published Oct 7, 2015

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Durban - An Empangeni farmer who has been held liable for the injuries sustained by a diesel mechanic after a mower attached to a tractor fell on him will have to pay R2.5 million in damages.

In addition, Noel Godwin will have to pay Errol Swiegers’s legal costs, in terms of an agreement reached in the Pietermaritzburg High Court this week.

Godwin had been found liable in April 2013 after the matter had gone to trial.

Swiegers said he had been contacted by Godwin to go to his farm on February 23, 2009, to determine what was wrong with a “slasher”.

When he arrived, one of Godwin’s employees moved the tractor under a shed, on his request, as it was raining. The driver raised the mower and Swiegers’s assistants put two stands underneath which each carried a weight of six tons.

Swiegers then checked to see if the tractor was in gear before going under the mower. He said the bolts holding the slasher were loose. Swiegers had just asked his assistant to bring a spanner when the mower fell on him.

He said nothing had been placed behind or in front of the wheels of the tractor to prevent it from moving – the responsibility of Godwin’s employees.

His spine, head and shoulders were injured and he had to be admitted to hospital.

Swiegers could not work for six months and when he returned to work, he could no longer do some of the work he had done previously.

As a result, his income was reduced from R45 000 to R20 000 a month.

Swiegers said his son had to abandon his university studies to assist in the business and his expenses had increased as more staff had to be hired.

Swiegers’s legal team argued that while he was inspecting the gearbox, one of Godwin’s employees climbed into the tractor and depressed the clutch pedal, dislodging the mower and causing it to fall and crush Swiegers.

In ruling in Swiegers’s favour, Judge Fikile Mokgohloa said the evidence was that the tractor – at the time it was being checked – could only move forward by an external intervention such as being driven forward.

Three witnesses had placed one of Godwin’s employees inside the tractor when the slasher had fallen.

The Mercury

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