Farmer loses defamation claim
AN erroneous paymentof slightly more than R11 000 into the bank account of a farmer sparked an array of court applications after the man who made the payment claimed that when he asked for his money back, the farmer told him, “I will kill you, you bloody k ***** ”
Mpumalanga farmer Fritz Louw vehemently denied that he ever uttered these words. As a result, he instituted a defamation claim for R300 000 in damages against Jack Moretsele.
Louw said his feelings were hurt, and his dignity was impaired by the fact that Moretsele told police in a statement that he had uttered these words.
Louw’s damages claim was, however, turned down earlier by the court. Aggrieved, he appealed against the judgment before the Mpumalanga High Court, sitting in Mbombela.
But Louw, once again, lost his case. In her opening remarks to the appeal judgment, Judge Malefsane
Kgoele said: “It is difficult to comprehend that almost three decades after the advent of democracy in this country, an erroneous payment of R11 462 into an account of a fellow South African citizen by another, will cause a pandemonium as it did here.”
The events were sparked after Moretsele had bought a piece of land and or plot from Louw.
Prior to the registration of this property in his name, he was paying occupational rent of R11 462 a month. He erroneously paid this amount when he was no longer under any obligation to pay.
Louw initially agreed to reverse the amount after he was alerted to this error but later reneged and refused to refund Moretsele.
He cited as a reason and justification for his refusal, legal fees allegedly owed to him by Moretsele stemming from a previous litigation between the two of them.
Attempts to recoup the overpaid rental went unheeded, which resulted in Moretsele driving to Louw’s farm in January 2020.
According to Moretsele, Louw was not home, but they met up as he was driving back home.
He said Louw got out of his car, armed with a firearm and said the dreaded words to him.
Moretsele immediately went to lay a criminal charge against Louw and repeated the words in his statement to police.
This had upset Louw, who denied that they ever met that day, let alone that he had uttered those words.
The Director of Public Prosecutions refused to prosecute Louw. However, hurt and angered by what was said in the police statement, Louw claimed damages from Moretsele.
He argued that in refusing to grant him damages, the court made several wrong findings. Louw maintained that it was clear that he was defamed, as people now think he is a racist.
While Moretele did not deny that he wrote those words in his police statement, he said he was entitled to do so, and it was definitely not to defame Louw.
He said that he simply approached the police and reported what he believed was the commission of a crime, and he did not intend to injure Louw’s name.
The trial court, in dismissing the appellant’s claim, found that it was satisfied on the balance of probabilities that when the respondent made the statement to the police, it was for the privileged occasion of reporting a crime with the intention to have a criminal investigation being conducted.
The judge at the time said there was no basis to find that the intention of the respondent was to injure the reputation of Louw. In voicing its displeasure with Louw’s conduct, the court slapped him with a punitive costs order.
Judge Kgoele, in turning down the appeal, said Moretsele did nothing wrong when he made the statement to the police in his bid to lay criminal charges against Louw.
“There is a generally accepted recognition in our law that for these crimes to be prosecuted, they need to be reported to the police first for investigation purposes,” the judge said.
To do this, they have to make statements to the SAPS about what allegedly happened. The court concluded that it was thus not defamatory to have stated the words which Moretsele claimed Louw had uttered.