Department to pay boy burnt by drain cleaner

● An 11-year-old pupil suffered severe chemical burns after using drain cleaner to flush a toilet at school because there was no water.

Last month the pupil received some solace after the Kimberley high court found Northern Cape education MEC Zolile Monakali liable to pay compensation after the horrific incident on October 12 2015.

The amount will be determined at another hearing.

The pupil testified that when he came across the drain cleaner he assumed it was water.

When he poured the liquid in an attempt to flush the toilet, it started “boiling”.

Judge Lawrence Lever said that after the boy discovered the liquid was not water, “it seems a process of experimentation followed”.

“This ultimately resulted in the victim or another learner pouring this drain cleaner into the urinal.

“This experimentation resulted in the drain cleaner splattering and burning the victim on his head, face and body.”

During the trial Monakali’s legal counsel argued that the victim was “the author of his own misfortune” and the MEC was not responsible for such harm.

But Lever said there was “no probing in cross-examination as to whether the victim understood the dangers of handling acid or the precautions to be observed, or whether he had the maturity to avoid irrational or impulsive acts in handling the said acid. Therefore, the defence raised by the first defendant [Monakali] that the victim was the author of his own misfortune, for which the first defendant is not responsible, must fail.”

He said the “wrongful omission or act” was allowing the children, who were 11 years old, to come into possession of the acid.

“There was a standing instruction to lock the drain cleaner in an office in the administrative section of the school when [it] was not in use.”

When the employee using the drain cleaner was asked why he had not taken it with him during his lunch break, he said he had “not yet succeeded in unblocking the relevant drain”.

Lever said the employee “clearly gave inadequate consideration to the risk he created for the learners”.

“His version of placing the drain cleaner behind an iron gate made up of bars which he barricaded with three wheelbarrows is inherently improbable.

“It would have been less trouble to simply carry what on his evidence was a 1l container back to where he was having lunch than to create the elaborate barricade he gave evidence of.”

The employee’s description of how he stored the drain cleaner when he went to lunch was so improbable that it stood to be rejected, said the judge.

Lever said the damages suffered by the victim were never seriously disputed in court.

Northern Cape education spokesperson Sydney Stander said the department respected the judgment.

“Our understanding is … the two parties must have a quantum hearing in which the details of the settlement will be discussed,” he said, adding that the department hoped the matter would be concluded amicably.