Ex-pupil sues Education dept for millions over bathroom slip

IN A MULTIMILLION-rand lawsuit against the Northern Cape Department of Education, the legal team representing 23-year-old Michael Links believes he is entitled to compensation, claiming that injuries he sustained from a fall on a slippery school floor have crippled his future job prospects.

- SANDI KWON HOO

The incident occurred in 2011 in the boys’ bathroom at Boegoeberg Brandboom Intermediary School near Upington, when Links was in Grade 3. He was nine years old at the time and suffered permanent brain injuries after slipping on the wet cement floor and hitting his head on the edge of a urinal.

Judge Almé Stanton ruled in 2024 that the Department of Education was liable to pay damages. She concluded, based on untested evidence from neurosurgeon Dr Zayne Domingo, that Links did not suffer a stroke, but that the fall had caused his condition to progressively deteriorate.

During proceedings in the Northern Cape High Court this week, the legal representative for the MEC for Education, Advocate Boitumelo Babuseng, pointed out that Links had worked for the nonprofit organisation LoveLife for a year.

"His father indicated that Michael enjoyed working at LoveLife on a one-year internship. He gave health talks to about 30 people. He also did manual labour at a pecan nut farm for a month," Babuseng said.

He further proposed that Links could potentially be offered an office-bound job at the department.

Babuseng added that it was considered normal in South Africa to gain employment through connections.