Debswana wants Gaetsaloe case back at High Court

Mpho Mokwape | Thursday July 24, 2014 10:27

Last week, at the Court of Appeal, the company’s lawyer Owen Cook from South Africa challenged the High Court’s decision to dismiss its application on the postponement of the trial saying it has prejudiced his client in losing the case.

In May, the High Court ruled in favour of the former employee, who had sued for unpaid remunerations. as the company had failed to file an answering affidavit. They had also failed respond to Gaetsaloe’s application that challenged his contract of employment based on two claims while still under Debswana.

Yesterday, Cook also advanced new grounds requesting that the case be remitted back to the court for a trial

According to court records, the company had on the day of the trial requested for a postponement, that was subsequently dismissed and later judgment entered in favour of Gaetsaloe.

Gaetsaloe, who has been battling his former employers for almost 10 years, with side litigation cases bouncing back and fourth between both the High Court and Court of Appeal, made an application in court in 2013.

He demanded that the company pay him a total of P435, 650-00 under two claims, a total P18, 480-00 for acting allowances in the posts of a financial manager and group manager for the first six months and P417, 170-00 as substantive unpaid remuneration for the periods of acting beyond six months.

However, Cook argued that they failed to file their answering affidavit since they failed to secure documents that were crucial to their case pointing out that the court dismissed the application without giving any reasons.

Cook argued that proceeding to the trial without certain documents that they wanted to prepare would have prejudiced their case, adding that evidence may emerge at the trial from witnesses relevant to all the issues that may prove that the former employee was not entitled to the claims.

“Even though the court used its discretion to dismiss the application it should have given reason as to why, and as such I request that the case be remitted back to court,” he said.

Gaetsaloe’s lawyer Itumeleng Segopolo disagreed, submitting that the appeal should be dismissed as Debswana had failed to demonstrate any misdirection by the court.

He said the company wanted to introduce new grounds not contained or mentioned in its notice or grounds of appeal, adding that Debswana now sought a relief not contained in the their Notice of Appeal.

He argued that the company should not advance that the case be remitted back to the High Court, as they did not do that in the Notice of Appeal. He viewed the company’s action as an attempt to stall.

“The company knows too well that they do not have the grounds for the trial hence the need to stall time by abandoning more of its grounds and the court has the option to refuse to entertain the new ground,” he said.

Segopolo further argued that if the company had wanted the court to postpone the case, they should have shown cause about the document they want to introduce to the trail.

“If the company knew the existence of the decisive and relevant evidence besides the documents sought, it ought to have come before the court with an affidavit giving the particulars of the alleged sources of evidence,” Segopolo said.

He added that Debswana was just making a faint stab at presenting its excuse as lawful for having not followed the court procedure of producing documents relevant to the case on time to both the courts and to its former employee.