RAF to pay damages for farm worker's eye injury

THE Road Accident Fund has been found liable for damages suffered by a farmworker struck by a thorn from a tree branch in her eye while being transported on the back of an open truck.

- ZELDA VENTER

Shereen Booysen turned to the Western Cape High Court where she claimed damages against the Fund, as she claimed the driver of the vehicle was negligent by swerving for oncoming traffic and the vehicle hit the tree branches on the pavement.

The driver said that he had stopped before the tree line to drop passengers. The RAF, in defending the matter, claimed Booysen's eye was not injured by the branch, but by something which the wind blew into her eye while she was walking. Booysen testified that she was a seasonal worker at a farm and her employer provided transport for workers, both to and from work. The driver, Ricardo Baartman, collected her and other farm workers daily and later took them back home in Paarl.