Court gags grumpy old man (92)
A92-year-old man accused of waging a relentless 13-year campaign against a bank in his attempts to claim on a cancelled insurance policy has been ordered to stop.
In an application before Durban High Court Judge Johan Ploos van Amstel, Absa obtained an interim order preventing Mr E I Paruk, who lives in central Durban, from making any “communication with the bank, alleging that it has committed fraud, committed forgery and owes him money”.
The order – which gives Paruk until next month to oppose its being made final – also instructs that he desist from “extorting payments” and confirms that his homeowner’s policy was cancelled in 2002.
Attorney Alistair Beaumont of Shepstone and Wylie, who represented the bank, said it had been forced to take the drastic court action after “numerous failed attempts to resolve the matter amicably”.
The policy was taken out in 1998 on a property owned by Paruk in Isipingo.
The bank said various payments were made while the policy was in place, although certain claims were repudiated on the basis of poor maintenance, and finally it was cancelled altogether.
But Paruk continued to lodge claims and “in a plethora of litigation” took the bank to court on several occasions.
Melissa Nel, legal counsel for Barclays Africa litigation, said in her affidavit that Paruk launched the first case in 2006 claiming almost R32 000 for “repairs carried out on the property”. He withdrew the action and “as a show of goodwill”, the bank settled the claim.
In 2010 he went back to court, suing for R7 000 in the small claims court. This was later withdrawn.
He has twice obtained default judgment against the bank for unpaid claims, forcing it to make rescission applications by pointing out that the policy was no longer in place and had not been for more than a decade.
Nel said apart from this “unnecessary and frivolous” litigation, Paruk had also harassed the bank, its officials and even its chief executive, Maria Ramos, writing as many as 200 letters.
Naked
In them he suggested that Absa should ask God for forgiveness, saying officials should “strip naked” so they could be punished, that he was “ready to die at Absa”, that officials must speak to his priest and that everyone would go to hell.
On top of that – even though the ombudsman has found no merit to his claims – he accuses the bank of “raped/frauded/ corrupted conduct” and has threatened to report this to the minister of justice, Thabo Mbeki and the media.
Nel said the court action was necessary because of this “consistent barrage” of defamatory and threatening correspondence.
The application was served on Paruk in February this year, but he did not attend court or file any papers opposing the application.