Local law firm always strives for greatness
Kruger and Partners is one of the most prestigious law firms in the Lowveld. It is one of the Lowveld’s leading commercial and corporate law firms, which consciously seeks to offer quality client service.
The services that the firm offers include wills and trusts, insolvency, commercial, corporate, family and labor law services, as well as litigation services in both the magistrate’s and High Court.
Kruger and Partners provided us with a real-life scenario from a recent High Court matter that the firm handled. The parties will be referred to as plaintiff and defendant.
Plaintiff owns a farm next to a farm belonging to the defendant. A fire began on the defendant’s farm and spread to the plaintiff’s farm.
Plaintiff incurred losses as a result and took to the Mpumalanga Division of the High Court where he sought to hold the defendant liable for his losses.
The defendant offered two arguments in denying liability: He argued that although he is the registered owner of the farm he was not in control thereof when the fire was ignited and that the plaintiff failed to make fire breaks along the boundaries of his own farm.
The firm gave the following suggestions for a farm owner to avoid a situation similar to that of the defendant and the plaintiff:
• The farmer needs to ensure that his employees are properly trained not to cause a fire on his farm.
• Upon detection of fire on his farm, the farmer has to ensure that he immediately responds to the fire, extinguishes and contains the fire while it is still small to prevent the fire from re-igniting or spreading to neighbouring properties.
• The farmer has to take reasonable steps to control and extinguish veld fires detected on his farm.
The firm concluded that failure to adhere to the above preventative measures can lead to civil liability for damages.
They added that it is convenient to have a High Court in Mbombela. Justice is thereby brought to the people.
