Administrator, Natal v Stanley Motors Ltd and Others

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Judge: Schreiner JA, Malan JA, Van Blerk JA, Ogilvie Thompson JA and Botha AJA
• Judgment Date: 14 December 1959
• Citation: 1960 (1) SA 690 (A)
• Court: Appellate Division

Ogilvie Thompson, J.A.:

Appellant appeals against the decision of the G Durban and Coast Local Division holding him liable for the damages sustained by respondents owing to the collapse, in the circumstances hereinafter detailed, on 31st October 1956 of the northern road-approach to the bridge over the Indombe river on the South Coast of Natal. For a proper appreciation of the issues to be determined in this appeal some preliminary reference to the facts is necessary. For that purpose, I can H do no better than quote the introductory portions of the lucid and able judgment of CANEY, J., in the Court a quo. The learned Judge said:

'Between 10.30 p.m. and 10.45 p.m. on 31st October, 1956, the second plaintiff was driving a motor car belonging to the first plaintiff along the South Coast National Road in the direction towards Port Shepstone (i.e. Southwards) intending to drive over the bridge (across the Ndombe River). Travelling with him in the car as a passenger was his wife. Their two minor children are the third and fourth plaintiffs. Rain had been falling from late afternoon or early evening, the river had come down in flood and a gap formed in the road

Ogilvie Thompson JA

approach contiguous to the north abutment of the bridge. Consequently, when the car travelled up the incline of the road embankment to the bridge, it collided with the north abutment of the bridge. Whether the road, itself had collapsed before the car was driven on to it or whether it was suspended over a void and collapsed when the car was driven on to it, is not known, but the fact is that the car was wrecked, with the consequence that the second plaintiff and his wife both suffered injuries; unhappily she later died of her injuries. In these circumstances the first plaintiff sued the Administrator of Natal, as A representing the Administration of the Province. for the damage to the car, the second plaintiff claimed damages for his personal injuries, for expenses in connection with the injuries to his wife and for the loss of her support and services. The third and fourth plaintiff claimed for the loss of support and services of their mother. During the course of the trial the damages of the first plaintiff were agreed to be £750 and those of the second plaintiff £3,750, this sum embracing any loss claimed in respect of the third and fourth plaintiffs, whose claims then B fell away. In relation to the large reduction in the claim of the second plaintiff it was explained that the pessimistic opinion originally held concerning his injuries had proved to be wrong.

It is common cause on the pleadings that the road and bridge 'were constructed by and were at all material times under the control of' the Administration of Natal. The plaintiffs allege that the road approach to the bridge collapsed as the consequence of negligence on the part of the C 'Administration or its servants acting in the course of their employment or of both the said Administration and its servants acting as aforesaid.' Particulars of the alleged negligence are averred. . . .

The defendant denies every allegation of negligence. He also averred negligence on the part of the second plaintiff in the driving of the car as causing or contributing to the accident, but at the inception of the trial this defence was abandoned. The defendant also pleaded that the washaway of the said road was caused by an act of God, namely D unprecedented rains which fell in the vicinity of the said bridge and in the catchment area of the said Indombe river on the night in question. This defence was abandoned after the close of the defendant's case.

The Indombe river is eight miles in length and has a catchment of only 9.27 square miles. The bed is a sandy soil. There appear to be no records of the flow of the river, but the evidence is that with one inch of rain between 120 and 150 million gallons would fall on to the catchment, the nature of which is such that a run-off into the river can E be expected of between 60 per cent. and 70 per cent., on the basis of the surface being wet when rain commences to fall. In a small catchment area, a flood develops more quickly than in a large area. particularly if the ground is steep. Normally the mouth of the river, as is typical of South Coast rivers, is closed by a sand bar. . . . The normal channel of the river is on its north side, flowing between the north abutment of the road bridge and its first pier. There the river bed is at its deepest and the current impinges on the north bank upstream of the road bridge. The normal place at which the river breaks through to the sea is F at the southern end of the sand bar, again a feature typical of South Coast rivers, but there is evidence of such rivers, having breached the sand bar, eroding it for the whole, or nearly the whole, of its width across the mouth of the river. . . .

During 1901 a railway bridge was constructed across the lagoon of the river. The sub-structure of this was of six piers of cast-iron screw piles, with a similar pile at each and serving as an abutment, that at the north end taking the place of a true abutment planned for that G situation. This sub-structure supported a super-structure of seven 30 feet spans. The drawing for the bridge indicates that rip-rap was to be placed on the river bed around the first pier in the river from the northern end, as protection against river-bed scour. This pier collapsed (bringing down with it the first span) on the night in question, as did also the pier serving as the north abutment.

The road bridge was constructed some fifty feet upstream of the railway bridge and some one hundred yards downstream of the confluence of two streams in the river. Aerial photographs taken in 1937 and 1955 indicate H that when the river flow is low the northern of these two streams contains the whole of it, but that when the flow increases a substantial stream runs on the southern side and at the confluence there is some degree of turbulence, at any rate until so much water has flowed down as to cause (with the sand bar closed) a 'ponding up' as far as or above the confluence. Until then, the current sweeps in towards the north bank of the river upstream of the north abutment of the road bridge. In the course of time the channel of the river has moved towards the north, whilst silt has been deposited on the southern side. This process of erosion of the north bank has been gradual, and not readily noticeable. The

Ogilvie Thompson JA

deepest part of the channel is about ten feet from the north abutment of the road bridge, and there, consequently, is the greatest velocity in the flow of the water.

The sub-structure of the road bridge consists of two concrete piers standing in the river at sites intended, according to the evidence, to align with alternate piers of the railway bridge. At each end of the A bridge is a concrete abutment. These piers and abutments stand, each on a group of concrete piles driven into the soil through the river bed, save the north abutment for which an excavation was made into the north bank, where the piles were driven into the soil, at the river's edge. On top of each group of piles is a pile cap on which stands the abutment or pier, as the case may be. The abutments are known as the ear type. The space or gap left of the excavation after construction of the north B abutment was filled with selected earth which was compacted, not. however, to the level of the adjacent bank profile, but leaving a pocket on each side of the abutment; in the course of time the pockets and the natural bank became stream-lined. An embankment was built up to make the approach to the abutment and to carry the road to it for the purpose of gaining access to the bridge; the side of this artificial embankment was covered, above the level of the bank with pitching for its protection against the action of surface water. The sub-structure I have mentioned carries a super-structure of three spans of sixty feet each. It was a C slipping forwards into the river of ground at and behind the north abutment which . . . caused the collapse of the road approach on the night in question.

The bridge was designed in 1939. Three bodies were concerned with its location, design and construction; the Natal Provincial Administration's Road Department surveyed the route for the South Coast National Road and fixed the situation of the bridges, including that of the one in question; the National Roads Board provided the money for the work and the Public Works Department of the Union Government designed the bridge D on behalf of the Provincial Administration, and supervised the construction by a firm of contractors. Late in 1938 or early in 1939 Messrs. Holliday, then district engineer of the Natal Provincial Administration at Durban, Bell, a senior engineer of the National Roads Board, and Dohse, a structural engineer of the Union Public Works Department at head office in Pretoria, undertook a reconnaissance of the route of the projected south coast national road and the siting of bridges in its course. Mr. Bell unfortunately has died, but both Mr. E Holliday and Mr. Dohse gave evidence at this trial. They visited the Ndombe River and satisfied themselves of the suitability of the site at which the bridge was to be constructed. They were impressed by the fact that the railway bridge had stood for close on forty years, and it seems that this was the principal feature which operated to persuade them that the site chosen for the road bridge was a suitable and safe one. Mr. Dohse said he visited the Railway Offices in Durban to examine the plans of the railway bridge and obtain such information as he was able to obtain; he did not state what this information was. The design of the F bridge was undertaken in his office in Pretoria and the drawings took shape under his supervision. They appear to have been acceptable to...