Question posted in the General Law category relating to Western Cape
Question value: R 150.00
had a Injury on duty. RMA finalized and said according to all the dr Reports and test I have A 12% Permanent disibility on my dominent arm and hand. I have been retrenched due to closure of SaldanhaSteel. My Injury was in 14May 2018 while permanently employed by Arcelor Mittal S.A i have been struggling ever since. Al reports was done on July 2020. With me having a 12% permanent disibility in my dominent arm. Due to injury sustained while on duty for Arcelor Mittal. Do the have any obligations to compinsate me. I am 34 years young. And worked for the company for 12years permanently. RMA compinsated me R120k for the 12%. My question, how does that seem fair. Does Arcelor Mittal have any obligation towards me and compinsation
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When you say "RMA", do you mean that the insurance company compensated you the R120k figure as a result of your injuries? Or what?
Att. Patrick
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My concern is that the company has already settled your claim against it for your injuries, in that they put in a claim with their insurance company and the insurance company offered you an amount of R120,000 for your injuries, and you then accepted that. If you signed some documents, like an letter of acceptance or another agreement or release document, then you've already settled your claim against the company.
This means (if what I think is correct) that you are no longer able to sue the company because the company has already settled your claim. This would mean that the company has already accepted that it is responsible, to whatever degree, and has settled your claim. The company's responsibility has therefore ended.
Surely somebody explained all of this to you, and went through the documents with you, or explained what the implications of you accepting the R120,000 from RMA meant?
Does the above sound correct? Or what?
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I think that AMSA are telling you that they have no obligation to you because you have been retrenched AND because you accepted the settlement which was put forwards by RMA, as their insurer, and you accepted the settlement. This means that you have settled the dispute with AMSA and you no longer have a claim against them, and they no longer owe you any obligations.
This all happened (I assume) after you received the R120,000 payment? In other words, after the matter was settled.
Did you appeal the amount of R120,000 within the 120 day period? I'm not entirely sure why there is an appeal provided for in that process.
Did you complete and sign the affidavit and send it back to them? I'm sure that this affidavit sets out that you agree to settle the matter with them for the R120,000.
Why did you sign the affidavit, or agree to the EFT of R120,000, if you didn't even know how the amount of R120,000 was calculated? It makes no sense to me.
I really do think that you've got a major problem here.
What I suggest that you do is that you take ALL of the documents that you have to a labour lawyer to read and give you a second opinion on. He must explain to you what the documents mean, and what the implication is of you signing them.
What you should have done, before signing the affidavit, is to ask questions - How do you calculate the R120,000? What does the appeal mean? How does this affect me? Is this a settlement, or something else? etc.
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Answer to the Question
You should have been more careful in asking for information before you agreed to settle your claim!
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What I'm saying is that you could have made a civil claim against AMSA, but you settled the case by accepting the R120,000 payment.