Delictual Liability in case of Suicide
| Jurisdiction | South Africa |
| Citation | (2001) 12 Stell LR 155 |
| Date | 27 May 2019 |
| Pages | 155-163 |
| Published date | 27 May 2019 |
| Author | Anton Kok |
DELICTUAL LIABILITY IN CASE OF SUICIDE
Anton Kok
BComm LLM
Senior Lecturer, University of Pretoria
1 Introduction
May someone be held accountable delictually in case of suicide?
Possible examples include the police who fail to look after a suicidal
prisoner in a cell or a psychiatrist that fails to realise that a patient is
suicidal and does not order close supervision of the patient.
I could not locate reported South African court decisions related to
suicide and delictual liability. This topic has also not been discussed in
South African legal journals as far as I could establish.
1
As with all other novel situations, the solution lies in the application of
well-established general principles of delict.
2 Requirements for delictual liability
2 1 Act
Both the (positive) act of misdiagnosing a patient and prescribing
inappropriate treatment for a patient and the (negative) act of failing to
take sufficient steps to prevent a suicide constitute acts from which
delictual liability may flow.
2
2 2 Wrongfulness
In a situation where a patient is in the care of an institution,
wrongfulness will exist in the breach of a duty to take reasonable care
that a detainee does not commit suicide
3
and in the resultant infringement
Gumbi "The delictual aspects of suicide" 1987
Transkei Law Journal
101 barely touches the issue.
Labuschagne "Die staatlike regsplig om selfbesering en -doding van 'n aangehoudene to voorkom"
1999
TRW
221 discusses
Reeves v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
decision by the English Court of Appeal.
2
Neethling, Potgieter & Visser
Deliktereg
Zed (1992) 29-30. Also see the cases from foreign jurisdictions
discussed
infra.
3
A number of foreign jurisdictions have accepted that a duty of care to take reasonable steps to avoid
suicide exists in a caregiver — detainee situation. Ireland: The facts of
Bridget Healy v The North
Western Health Board
were as follows: the deceased committed suicide on 17 December 1989 after
being taken up in hospital on 4 December and discharged on 13 December. The deceased suffered from
depression in 1972 for which he received treatment at the time at the same hospital. In October/
November 1989 he again became depressed and was persuaded by his family and the public psychiatric
nurse to be taken care of in hospital. On evaluating the evidence the court found that no proper pre-
discharge evaluation of the deceased was made. This coupled with the fact that all of the expert
testimony agreed that depression carries an inherent risk of suicide, led the court to the decision that the
hospital acted negligently and that this negligence caused the deceased's death. £35 000 in agreed
damages was awarded to the plaintiff. What makes this case somewhat unusual is the fact that the
suicide did not take place while the patient was in the care of the hospital but 4 days after he was
155
(2001) 12 Stell LR 155
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