Case Law[2023] ZAWCHC 114South Africa
Pendigo Trade and Investment (Pty) Ltd t/a ITEC Finance v Potgieter (9928/2022) [2023] ZAWCHC 114 (22 May 2023)
Headnotes
Summary judgment – Section 3 of Conventional Penalties Act 15 of 1962 – Statement in Premier Finance Corporation (Pty) Ltd v Steenkamp 1974 (3) SA 141 (D) that ‘summary judgment proceedings are wholly inappropriate for recovering a penalty’ explained and qualified – Summary judgment granted.
Judgment
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## Pendigo Trade and Investment (Pty) Ltd t/a ITEC Finance v Potgieter (9928/2022) [2023] ZAWCHC 114 (22 May 2023)
Pendigo Trade and Investment (Pty) Ltd t/a ITEC Finance v Potgieter (9928/2022) [2023] ZAWCHC 114 (22 May 2023)
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sino date 22 May 2023
Republic of South
Africa
IN THE HIGH COURT OF
SOUTH AFRICA
(WESTERN CAPE
DIVISION, CAPE TOWN)
Case No. 9928/2022
Before: The Hon. Mr
Justice Binns-Ward
Hearing: 16 May
2023
Judgment: 22 May 2023
In
the matter between:
PENDIGO
TRADE AND INVESTMENT (PTY) LTD
t/a
ITEC FINANCE
Plaintiff
and
SUZANNE
MICHELLE POTGIETER
Defendant
Summary
judgment
–
Section 3 of
Conventional Penalties Act 15 of 1962 – Statement in
Premier
Finance Corporation (Pty) Ltd v Steenkamp
1974
(3) SA 141
(D) that ‘
summary
judgment proceedings are wholly inappropriate for recovering a
penalty
’
explained and qualified
– Summary judgment granted.
## JUDGMENT
JUDGMENT
BINNS-WARD J:
[1]
Bergrivier
Diesel (Pty) Ltd t/a Potgieter Transport entered into a written
agreement in September 2017 in terms of which it hired
certain goods
from the plaintiff for a minimum period of 60 months. The
rental was payable monthly in advance. It was
set at R15372.90
per month inclusive of VAT at the commencement of the lease, to
increase annually by 10 per cent.
[2]
It
is not necessary to describe the terms of the agreement in detail.
It was common ground that the goods in question were
purchased by the
plaintiff at the instance of Potgieter Transport for the sole purpose
of being hired to it. The agreement
recorded that the plaintiff
did not warrant the quality of the goods or that they were fit for
purpose. As the plaintiff’s
counsel aptly observed, the
contract between the plaintiff and Potgieter Transport was in essence
‘a financing agreement’.
The goods in question were
itemised in the agreement, in several instances with reference to
their respective serial numbers.
The agreement was not subject
to the
National Credit Act 34 of 2005
.
[3]
Clause
17 of the hire agreement provided:
‘
You
[ie Potgieter Transport] acknowledge and agree:
1.
that
you selected and inspected the goods prior to signing the Agreement
and/or the Schedule and are satisfied with the goods and
that they
suit your purpose;
2.
that
all warranties implied by the common law are excluded and that no
representations of any nature have been made by or on our
behalf; and
3.
that
once the Schedule to the Agreement is signed by you, all the risk in
the goods passes to you.’
[4]
On
the same day that the hire agreement was concluded, the defendant
executed a document entitled ‘Guarantee’, in terms
of
which, insofar as currently relevant, she bound herself in favour of
the hirer or its cessionaries as surety for, and co-principal
debtor
with, Potgieter Transport in respect of the latter’s
obligations under the hire agreement.
[1]
[5]
Potgieter
Transport fell into arrears with the payment of rental in terms of
the hire agreement. As at 1 February 2022, the
amount in
arrears was R332 898.07. Clause 7.2 of the agreement
permitted the plaintiff in the given circumstances to
terminate the
contract, take possession of the goods, claim the outstanding rentals
and also ‘
as agreed pre-estimated
liquidated damages, the aggregate value of the rentals which would
have been payable in terms of the Agreement
up to the earliest
possible date upon which this Agreement could otherwise have
terminated by notice
’
. The
plaintiff elected to exercise its rights in terms of the subclause.
It alleges the value of future rentals that
would have been payable
in respect of the executory period of the contract when it was
cancelled is in the sum of R109 399.60.
[6]
In
the current action, the plaintiff has sued the defendant on the basis
of the forementioned ‘guarantee’ for payment
of
R442 297.67, being the sum of the arrears and future rentals
described in the preceding paragraph. The defendant
opposed the
claim and delivered a plea in which she raised the following
defences:
1.
An allegation that the goods rented to Potgieter
Transport were ‘
from the outset’
faulty and/or defective, not fit for their intended purpose
’
and ‘
could not
be used or enjoyed ... as contemplated by the Hire Agreement
’
2.
A denial that Potgieter Transport had been in
arrears with its rental payments, it being pleaded that the principal
debtor was entitled
to withhold payment in terms of the
exceptio
non adimpleti contractus
,
‘
alternatively, the Plaintiff’s
breach of the Hire Agreement, to the defects which, after notice,
Plaintiff failed to rectified
’
(sic).
3.
That ‘[i]
nsofar
as Plaintiff claims pre-estimated liquidated damages, … such a
claim constitutes a penalty in terms of Section 1(1)
of the
Conventional Penalties Act 15 of 1962 (“the Act”)
’
and ‘
the future
rentals payable constitute a penalty ...
[which]
is excessive ...taking into
consideration that (1) the principal debtor notified the plaintiff
during or about October 2017 of the
defects and tendered return of
the goods;
[and]
(2) Plaintiff
has to date failed to take delivery of the goods or to mitigate its
damages
’
[7]
The
plaintiff applied in terms of Rule 32 for summary judgment. In
her opposing affidavit, the defendant reiterated the defences
advanced in her plea. In the affidavit, however, she averred
that the plaintiff had failed to perform under the hire agreement
in
that it had not delivered the stipulated goods to the principal
debtor. The defendant made the following averments in
that
regard:
‘
22.In
its present form, the plea records only that goods delivered were
defective, unfit for their intended purpose and/or could
not be used.
23.To
be clear, there has, in fact, been no proper performance by the
plaintiff at all. I say so since the plaintiff persistently
failed to
deliver the goods contracted for. Instead the plaintiff
provided the Principal Debtor with goods which fell beyond,
and
usually below, the specifications set out in the Master Agreement of
Hire. By failing to deliver the specified goods,
the plaintiff
wholly failed to perform its obligations under the Master Agreement
of Hire.
24.In
the circumstances, I humbly submit that my defence as to the goods is
not that the goods were defective, but rather, that
the goods as
contemplated by the Master Agreement of Hire were never delivered in
the first place.
25.I
cannot account for the above as I was never consulted in the
preparation of the plea.’
[8]
The
defendant sought to explain her stated non-involvement in the
preparation of her original plea by averring that she had sold
Potgieter Transport as a going concern to a certain Mr Imraan Chand
on 1 March 2021, and that when proceedings were instituted
against
her in June 2022 Mr Chand had informed her that he would refer the
matter to his attorneys, Potgieter & Associates.
She
averred that she had thereafter heard nothing further.
Potgieter & Associates was the firm of attorneys that initially
placed itself on record as the defendant’s attorneys of record
in the action. It filed a notice of withdrawal as attorneys
of
record on 4 November 2022. Notice of set down of the summary
judgment application was thereafter served by the sheriff
on 9
November 2022, and the defendant’s current attorneys of record
placed themselves on record by notice also dated 9 November
2022.
The summary judgment application was set down for hearing on 29
November and notice of the defendant’s intention
to oppose the
application and amend her plea was given on 25 November 2022.
[9]
The
amendment to the plea provided in relevant as follows:
‘
Save
to admit the conclusion of the Master Agreement of Hire on the terms
alleged, the Defendant denies the remaining allegations
contained in
this paragraph [it is not clear what ‘remaining allegations’
the pleader had in mind], in particular,
the allegation that the
Plaintiff delivered the goods to the Principal Debtor. In
amplification:
1. The goods delivered by
the Plaintiff to the Principal Debtor fell beyond and predominantly
below, the specifications set out
in the Master Agreement of Hire;
2. As such, the Plaintiff
therefore failed to deliver the goods contracted for under the Master
Agreement of Hire; and
3. Accordingly, the
Plaintiff has wholly failed to perform its obligations under the
Master Agreement of Hire.’
[10]
It
is undisputed that the principal debtor paid the rental in terms of
hire agreement for more than two years before falling into
arrears.
(During argument of the application, the plaintiff’s counsel
stated, without objection from the defendant’s
counsel, that 32
months’ rental had been paid.) In her amended plea the
defendant pleaded that ‘
to the
extent that the Principal Debtor made any payments to the Plaintiff
during the course of the Master Agreement of Hire, such
payments were
made in good faith, as a show of the Principal Debtor’s
willingness and ability to perform
’
.
[11]
The
requirements that a defendant has to satisfy to avoid summary
judgment are trite; see
Breitenbach v
Fiat SA (Edms) Bpk
1976 (2) SA
226
(T), at 228B-H and
Maharaj v
Barclays National Bank Ltd
1976
(1) SA 418
(A) at 426A-E. The amended rule 32 has not affected
the position; see
Tumileng Trading CC v
National Security and Fire (Pty) Ltd; E and D Security Systems CC v
National Security and Fire (Pty) Ltd
[2020]
ZAWCHC 28
(30 April
2020); 2020 (6) SA 624
(WCC), endorsed in
Cohen
N.O and Others v D
[2023] ZASCA 56
(20 April 2023);
[2023] JOL 58657
(SCA)
,
at para 29.
[12]
If
a defendant can show on the face of it that it has a legally
cognisable defence and that the defence is genuine or bona fide,
summary judgment must be refused. The defendant’s
prospects of success are irrelevant. As I remarked in
Tumileng
supra, at para 25, ‘The assessment of
whether a defence is bona fide is made with regard to the manner in
which it has been
substantiated in the opposing affidavit; viz. upon
a consideration of the extent to which “
the
nature and grounds of the defence and the material facts relied upon
therefor
”
have been canvassed by
the deponent. That was the method by which the court
traditionally tested, insofar as it was possible
on paper, whether
the defence described by the defendant was “contrived”,
in other words not bona fide.’
[13]
The
defence that the plaintiff failed to deliver the goods that were
subject of the hire agreement has been stated in the baldest
of
terms. The hire agreement does not contain any specifications
in respect of those goods. The goods concerned are
merely
identified in the schedule to the agreement. It is in any event
clear from the provisions of the hire agreement alluded
to earlier in
this judgment that the plaintiff would have had no interest in the
performance specifications of the goods because
the hirer chose them
and the lessor gave no warranty concerning their performance or
suitability.
[14]
The
complaints about the performance of the goods articulated in the
defendant’s affidavit therefore appear to be irrelevant.
It is also not at all clear why they were raised if the defence
actually is that the goods that the plaintiff placed in Potgieter
Transport’s possession were not those listed in the schedule to
the hire agreement.
[15]
If
the goods that the plaintiff supplied to Potgieter were not those
stipulated in the schedule to that agreement, one would have
expected
the defendant to be able to describe the character of the goods that
the principal debtor did receive, so as to demonstrate
the difference
between what was given and what was listed in the schedule to the
hire agreement. Moreover, if there had been
a wholesale
non-performance by the plaintiff of the nature described by the
defendant, one would have expected an immediate protest
from
Potgieter Transport that the goods were not those that it had
chosen. There is no evidence at all of any such protest,
nor is
there an explanation as to the peculiar absence of one.
[16]
All
that the defendant has done is to attach to her opposing affidavit an
exchange of email correspondence early in November 2017
between one
Alwyn van Deventer, apparently of Potgieter Transport, and the
plaintiff, in which Van Deventer complained about some
unidentified
computer software (it is referred to in the email as ‘
this
app’
) not functioning
satisfactorily. The response suggested that the problem might
have to do with an ADSL line, and mooted as
a solution running the
app ‘
over a Diginet line’
.
(The court can take judicial notice that ADSL and Diginet lines are
two means of internet connectivity offered by Telkom.)
The
connection between ‘the app’ referred to in the
correspondence and any of the goods described in the schedule to
the
hire agreement is not evident. The evidence also does not
explain the relevance of correspondence about a complaint about
an
unidentified app if the issue was that the plaintiff had failed to
deliver the goods that Potgieter Transport had agreed to
lease from
it.
[17]
The
evidence adduced by the defendant concerning the plaintiff’s
alleged non-performance in terms of the hire agreement is
not only
inexplicably opaque, it is also inconsistent with the inherent
probabilities. Why would any business pay rental
in a not
insignificant amount for more than two years on goods that it had not
agreed to hire, and which it was unable to use?
In the context
of the defendant’s failure to describe the goods placed in
principal debtor’s possession and what it
did with them, the
suggestion that the payments were an act of good faith kept up in the
hope that the plaintiff would eventually
provide the items listed in
the schedule to the hire agreement seems risible. The
cumulative effect of the aforementioned
deficiencies in the setting
out of her defence by the defendant leave the court unpersuaded as to
its genuineness.
[18]
The
defendant’s counsel correctly conceded that if the defendant
had failed to make out a bona fide defence on the basis of
her
contention that the plaintiff had failed to place the principal
debtor in possession of the goods subject of the lease, the
question
of her reliance on the
exceptio non
adimpleti contractus
did not arise for
consideration. There is accordingly no need to discuss it.
[19]
The
defendant’s reliance on the Conventional Penalties Act 15 of
1962 can bear only on that part of the plaintiff’s
claim for
payment of R109 399.60 in respect of the rentals that the
principal debtor would liable to pay from termination
of the hire
agreement to the end of the stipulated initial 60-month period of the
lease. I accept, despite the plaintiff’s
contention to
the contrary, that its claim for pre-estimated (or liquidated)
damages in terms of the agreement is pursuant to a
penalty
stipulation with the meaning of the Act.
[2]
[20]
Section
3 of the Conventional Penalties Act provides:
‘
If
upon the hearing of a claim for a penalty, it appears to the court
that such penalty is out of proportion to the prejudice suffered
by
the creditor by reason of the act or omission in respect of which the
penalty was stipulated, the court may reduce the penalty
to such
extent as it may consider equitable in the circumstances: Provided
that in determining the extent of such prejudice the
court shall take
into consideration not only the creditor's proprietary interest, but
every other rightful interest which may be
affected by the act or
omission in question.’
[21]
The
wording of s 3 can be construed to the effect that its
provisions may be applied by the court
suo
motu
. It has been remarked in
that regard that the provision not only invests the court with a
power to make an equitable order
but also imposes a duty upon it to
do so when a penalty appears to it out of proportion in the sense
contemplated. Not having
had the benefit of argument on the
point,
I have assumed for the purposes of
this judgment that the authorities that have construed s 3 of
the Conventional Penalties
Act to impose a duty on the court in
appropriate cases to apply the provision
mero
motu
, which appears to imply an
inquisitorial approach, were correctly decided. That
construction is, however, not easy to reconcile
with the appeal court
authority referred to later in this judgment that has held that s 3
places a true onus on a debtor seeking
to mitigate the effect of a
penalty stipulation to prove
that the
penalty is disproportionate to the prejudice suffered and to what
extent, which appears to imply a strictly adversarial
approach.
[22]
In
the current matter the extent of the penalty does not appear to me,
on the face of it, to be out of proportion. It equates,
subject
to the effect of any mitigatory measures that the plaintiff might
reasonably be expected to avail of, to the sum that the
plaintiff,
absent the penalty stipulation, would have been able to claim by way
of general contractual damages, viz. the amount
necessary to put
the plaintiff, in monetary terms, in the position it would have been
if the principal debtor had not breached
the contract.
[23]
Insofar,
however, as the defendant would apparently nevertheless seek to
persuade a trial court that the penalty was disproportionate,
she
would bear the onus of proving that the penalty is disproportionate
to the prejudice suffered and to what extent; see
National
Sorghum Breweries (Pty) Limited t/a Vivo Africa Breweries v
International Liquor Distributors (Pty) Limited
[2000]
ZASCA 70
(28 November
2000); 2001 (2) SA 232
(SCA);
[2001] 1 All SA
417
(A) at para 8 and
Steinberg v Lazard
[2006] ZASCA 55
(31 March
2006); 2006 (5) SA 42
(SCA) at para 7, citing
Smit v
Bester
1977 (4) SA 937
(A) at
942D – G. The defendant has not given any indication in
her opposing affidavit of the evidence she would
adduce to discharge
the onus. (This was perhaps not surprising because the exercise
would necessarily have entailed admitting
the plaintiff’s claim
to some extent, even if in a lesser sum than that prayed for in the
summons. The plaintiff would
then, on any approach, have been
entitled to summary judgment on the admitted amount.)
[24]
As
the defendant failed to give any indication in her opposing affidavit
of how she might be able to discharge the onus in terms
of s 3
of the Conventional Penalties Act, I would have been inclined without
more ado to hold that there was nothing in her
reliance on the
provision. However, it came to my notice that there is a
statement in
Christie’s
Law of Contract in South Africa
that
suggests ‘
summary
judgment proceedings are wholly inappropriate for recovering a
penalty
’
.
[3]
Premier
Finance Corporation (Pty) Ltd v Steenkamp
1974
(3) SA 141
(D) at 144B and
Peters
v Janda
1981
(2) SA 339
(Z) are cited in support of the proposition.
[4]
I therefore invited, and subsequently gratefully received,
post-hearing submissions from counsel on the point.
[25]
A
consideration of the first mentioned judgment cited in
Christie
reveals that although Howard J, in
Premier
Finance Corporation
, did indeed state
that ‘
summary judgment proceedings
are wholly inappropriate for recovering a penalty
’
,
the learned judge did not intend to state that position as an
unqualified premise. As always, the intended import of the
statement is to be found not in the quoted words read in isolation,
but rather from considering them with regard to the context
in which
they were employed.
[26]
It
was common ground in
Premier Finance
Corporation
that summary judgment
should be refused because the defendants had shown that they had bona
fide defences to the plaintiff’s
claim. The only issue
that the court had to determine was whether the plaintiff should have
to pay the defendants’
costs of suit in the application because
it knew or should reasonably have appreciated before bringing the
application that summary
judgment proceedings were inappropriate in
the peculiar circumstances of that case.
[27]
The
defendants in
Premier Finance
Corporation
had stood as sureties for
the principal debtor in respect of the latter’s obligations in
terms of its purchase by way of a
hire purchase agreement of an
‘Engel injection moulding machine complete with dies and heads
and moulds’. Similarly
to the position in the current
matter, the hire purchase agreement provided that in the event of a
default by the purchaser, the
credit provider could cancel the
agreement, repossess the goods and claim payment of all of the
instalments that would have been
payable over the executory period of
the contract. In that case, the credit provider cancelled the
60-month hire purchase
agreement after the elapse of only one year of
the contract period and sought, in terms of the penalty stipulation,
to exact payment
of the instalments that would have fallen due over
the remaining four years of the hire purchase term.
[28]
Responding
to the defendants’ contention that the plaintiff should have
foreseen in the circumstances of that case that they
would ask the
court, in terms of s 3 of the Conventional Penalties Act, to
reduce its claim,
[5]
and
therefore should never have applied for summary judgment, Howard J
said (at p. 144D-G) –
‘
I
do not consider that there is sufficient proof that the plaintiff
knew or must have known that the question of the penalty would
be
raised. Nevertheless, I think that under the circumstances of this
case the plaintiff acted at its peril in applying for summary
judgment. In view of the nature of the plaintiff's business its
credit manager was probably aware of the operation of the
Conventional
Penalties Act, and in any event it was represented by
attorneys. Its representatives knew that a very substantial portion
of the
claim represented finance charges the payment of which had in
terms of the agreement been spread over a period of five years and
that it was seeking to recover payment of such finance charges after
the expiry of only one year of that period. If they had paused
to
consider these facts they would have realised that the question of
the penalty would in all probability be raised by the defendants
or
the Court. The Court would probably have acted
mero
motu
even
if the defendants had not taken the point, for the word "may"
in sec. 3 of the Act does not merely confer a discretion,
but a power
coupled with a duty. (See
Western
Credit Bank Ltd
.
v
Kajee
,
1967
(4) SA 386
(N) at p. 391B; [
[6]
]
Western
Bank Ltd
.
v
Meyer;
de Waal; Swart and Another
,
1973
(4) SA 697
(T) at p. 699E). In my view the plaintiff ought
reasonably to have expected the question of the penalty to be raised,
and
if it launched the application without giving due consideration
to that possibility it deserves to be ordered to pay the defendants’
costs.’
See also
Bester v Smit
1976 (4) SA 751
(C) at 760E-G. It is clear from the passage
just quoted from
Premier Finance Corporation
and that cited in
Bester v Smit
that the court in both matters apprehended that
the equitable mitigation of the stipulated penalties being claimed in
those cases
was,
on the facts pleaded by the plaintiff
, a
readily foreseeable triable issue.
[29]
The
statement from the judgment in
Premier
Finance Corporation
that is quoted in
Christie
appears
in the following passage (at p. 144B-C):
‘
In
my opinion summary judgment proceedings are totally inappropriate for
deciding whether a penalty is out of proportion to the
prejudice
suffered, or for determining the extent to which a penalty should be
reduced. I agree with Mr.
Gordon
that
in
this case
the
application for summary judgment was bound to fail once the question
of the penalty was raised. I did not understand Mr.
Law
to dispute this. His answer to
Mr.
Gordon's
submissions on this part of the case
was that it had not been proved that the plaintiff
must
have known that the point would be
raised, and that it was entitled to make and persist with the
application until such time as
the point was taken’
The phrase that I have
underlined in the passage makes it clear that the statement in the
preceding sentence, which is quoted in
Christie
, was not
intended to imply that a defendant has only to refer to s 3 of
the Conventional Penalties Act to ward off a summary
judgment
application or that a plaintiff seeking to exact a penalty was in
every case precluded from applying for summary judgment.
[30]
The
import of the judgment is that where it appears that the application
of s 3 of the Act is or could be a cognisable issue
in a case,
summary judgment is wholly inappropriate because a forensic
investigation into the proportionality of the penalty will
be
necessary.
Premier Finance
Corporation
was an example of a matter
in which the probably unfairly disproportionate effect of the penalty
was manifest on the pleaded facts.
In other words, it was the
sort of case in which the court arguably would be under a duty to
investigate the justness of enforcing
the penalty even if the
defendants did not raise the issue themselves.
[31]
In
a case like the instant one, where the penalty on its face did not
appear to be disproportionate, it would be for a defendant
intending
to rely on s 3 to plead the alleged disproportionality in its
plea and to expand on the bases for its contention
in any affidavit
subsequently deposed to in opposing a summary judgment application.
In the summary judgment proceedings,
such a defendant would be
expected to establish the bona fides of its invocation of the
provision by giving an indication of the
evidence it would adduce to
discharge the onus on it to prove that the penalty was
disproportionate to the prejudice suffered and
to what extent.
Merely identifying that the claim involved the enforcement of a
penalty stipulation and referring to s 3
would not be
sufficient, without more, to make out a cognisable defence or
establish the existence of a triable issue.
[32]
Peters
v Janda
involved an application for
summary judgment in which the Zimbabwean equivalent of s 3 of
the Conventional Penalties Act was
invoked. Far from endorsing
the proposition that summary judgment was inappropriate in every case
in which recovery of a
penalty was sought, Waddington J, referring to
the statement in
Premier Finance
Corporation
that is quoted in
Christie
,
said (at p. 343G), ‘
I would
not be prepared to go so far as to say that this would be the
inevitable result in every such case
’
.
[33]
The
matter of
Citibank NA, South Africa
Branch v Paul NO and Another
2003 (4)
SA 180
(T), to which the plaintiff’s counsel referred in
argument, serves as an example of a matter in which, albeit without
any
consideration of Howard J’s statement in
Premier
Finance Corporation
or the treatment
thereof in
Christie
,
summary judgment was granted in the face of the defendant’s
purported reliance on s 3 of the Conventional Penalties
Act.
[34]
For
these reasons I have not been persuaded that the defendant has a bona
fide defence to the plaintiff’s claim.
[35]
The
plaintiff claimed costs against the defendant on the scale as between
attorney and
own
client.
Whilst the hire agreement provides for costs on that scale in
proceedings between the plaintiff and the principal
debtor, the
‘guarantee’ upon which the defendant has been sued in the
current proceedings provides (in clause 11) for
costs on the less
punitive scale as between attorney and client.
[36]
An
order will therefore issue in the following terms:
1.
Summary judgment is granted against the defendant
in favour of the plaintiff for payment of the sum of R442 297.67,
together
with interest thereon
a tempore
morae
at six per cent above the
prevailing base rate at which the plaintiff’s bankers advance
loans on overdraft.
2.
The defendant shall be liable for the plaintiff’s
costs of suit on the scale as between attorney and client.
A.G. BINNS-WARD
Judge of the High
Court
APPEARANCES
Plaintiff’s
counsel:
M.
Botha
(Heads
of argument drafted by G. Loubser.)
Plaintiff’s
attorneys:
Jay
Mathobi Inc.
Rosebank,
Johannesburg
MacGregor
Erasmus Attorneys
Cape
Town
Defendant’s
counsel:
P.
MacKenzie
Defendant’s
attorneys:
Vanderspuy
Cape Town
Cape
Town
[1]
The
term ‘guarantee’ is often used synonymously with
‘suretyship’ in common parlance. The type of
contract properly called a guarantee is, however, of a quite
distinct character. As to the distinction between the two
forms of contract, see Forsyth & Pretorius,
Caney’s
Law of Suretyship
6ed
(Juta), Chapter 2 §3.
[2]
Section
1 of the Act provides:
‘
Stipulations
for penalties in case of breach of contract to be enforceable
(1) A
stipulation, hereinafter referred to as a penalty stipulation,
whereby it is provided that any person shall, in respect
of an act
or omission in conflict with a contractual obligation, be liable to
pay a sum of money or to deliver or perform anything
for the benefit
of any other person, hereinafter referred to as a creditor, either
by way of a penalty or as liquidated damages,
shall, subject to the
provisions of this Act, be capable of being enforced in any
competent court.
(2) Any
sum of money for the payment of which or anything for the delivery
or performance of which a person may so become
liable, is in this
Act referred to as a penalty.
’
[3]
GB
Bradfield,
Christie’s
Law of Contract in South Africa
,
7ed (LexisNexis) at p. 664. That is the most recent edition of
the work provided to judges in the Western Cape Division
of the High
Court. Counsel advised that it is repeated in the current
(8
th
)
edition.
[4]
Id.
in footnote 471.
[5]
At
that time applications for summary judgment were brought and
determined before the delivery by the defendant of a plea.
[6]
The
judgment in
Kajee
should
be read subject to the qualifications concerning it expressed in
Steinberg
v Lazard
supra,
at para 9-10.
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