Legal costs soar twentyfold after woman insults lawyer

A dispute over a R3,600 legal bill has cost a Cape Town woman R70,000 after she was found to have besmirched a lawyer’s good name.

Two judges in KwaZulu-Natal have agreed with an earlier ruling by Pietermaritzburg regional court magistrate Rose Mogwera that Hemelene Chetty defamed attorney Saras Perumaul when she alleged in a complaint to the KwaZulu-Natal Law Society that Perumaul was “scamming the people of the community”.

Chetty appealed against Mogwera’s ruling to the high court in Pietermaritzburg, but judges Rob Mossop and Rishi Seegobin this week rejected her arguments.

They began their judgment with a quote from Shakespeare’s Othello: “Who steals my purse steals trash, ’tis something, nothing: ’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands. But he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed.”

The quarrel began in 2012 when Perumaul, who has been practising for 25 years, approached Chetty’s mother to discuss the nonpayment of a bill for a consultation they had had the year before.

Chetty became involved. She called Perumaul, recording the conversation without her knowledge, and questioned her about details of the bill, wanting a breakdown of the fees.

Perumaul declined to disclose the information and Chetty lodged her complaint with the law society, claiming Perumaul had been rude to her.

In one of her affidavits, she accused Perumaul of painting a picture of her mother as a cold-hearted, gold-digging, shrewd racist who cared only about money and did not care about her husband, siblings or children.

She said she had done her own “little investigation” and accused Perumaul of “scamming, for lack of a better word”, people in the community, preying on poor, uneducated people in their time of grief and breaking up families.

The R3,600 bill was not an issue, Chetty said.

She said she did not have proof but she believed if the society did its own investigation, it might uncover things far worse.

Perumaul sued Chetty in the regional court and won a damages award of R70,000.

In considering Chetty’s appeal, the two judges said Perumaul had been correct in not discussing the bill with Chetty because she was not her client.

The statement of account was detailed and was “unremarkable in its content and in the amount charged”, they said.

It was little surprise that the law society had taken no action against Perumaul.

They said that during the trial in the regional court, no evidence was adduced of any scam.

There was also no evidence to support the allegation that the attorney “preyed” on people.

The judges said Chetty’s allegations that a further investigation would uncover far worse things that Perumaul had done was a “gratuitous slur”.

“Viewed as a whole, the words used impugn the reputation and integrity of Perumaul and were designed to do so … they are clearly defamatory.”

The judges said although Chetty had “qualified privilege” in that her complaint was directed to the law society, she still had to show that her statements were relevant to the matter at hand, which they were not.

Turning to the R70,000 damages award, the judges noted that the magistrate had been influenced by Chetty’s attitude during the trial when she said she had not apologised to Perumaul because the law society had not conducted the investigation she had requested.

The judges said this illuminated her mindset and lack of contrition. “Impugning the good name of an attorney remains a serious matter.”