Most of the payout is interest calculated from when state's liability for TB contraction in prisons was established in 2012
- A former awaiting-trial prisoner has been awarded more than R1-million after contracting tuberculosis while detained at Pollsmoor Prison.
- The state agreed to pay R350,000 in damages, but more than R700,000 was added in interest because of delays in finalising the case.
- The High Court ruled that the Department of Correctional Services knew it was liable after the Constitutional Court's 2012 judgment in a similar TB case, yet it failed to resolve the claim sooner.
A man who sued the Minister of Correctional Services for contracting tuberculosis (TB) while he was an awaiting-trial prisoner has been awarded over a million rand in damages.
More than R700,000 of this is interest on the agreed damages of R350,000, because the case took decades to reach finality and the minister had known the state was liable since 2012.
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Zaid Seedat was imprisoned from 15 June 2000 to 30 August 2003 as an awaiting-trial prisoner. He made numerous court appearances and was ultimately convicted and fined.
For most of his detention he was held at the hospital section of Pollsmoor Prison in a single cell, but he made frequent visits to a 12-person communal hospital cell.
He was diagnosed with TB in late November 2001.
Read the judgment here.
In a recent ruling, Cape High Court Acting Judge Adrian Montzinger said Seedat had issued summons in December 2004 against the minister for damages. The matter then "entered a period of inactivity" because of a similar action instituted by Dudley Lee, who had also contracted TB while incarcerated at Pollsmoor.
Lee's case wound its way through the courts until, in December 2012, the Constitutional Court held that the prison authorities' failure to adequately manage TB constituted negligence.
Lee received R270,000 in damages and secured legal precedent for similar cases.
Judge Montzinger said that in Seedat's case, it was only in 2014 that the parties agreed on how to proceed, and and they only settled in 2024. Seedat was awarded R300,000 in damages. However, for reasons unknown, that order was rescinded later that year.
In 2025, the matter was back before the court. By agreement, the parties again settled, with the minister conceding liability for 100% of Seedat's damages.
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When the matter came before Montzinger for a trial on the amount of the damages, the parties again asked for an adjournment. The judge refused as he said Seedat had waited 20 years for the finalisation of his action.
Seedat amended his claim for compensation to R350,000 and the minister's lawyers agreed.
The matter then proceeded to the issue of interest.
Seedat's lawyers argued that interest should accrue from December 2004, the date of the issue of summons.
The minister's lawyers argued that interest should only accrue from the date of the judgment.
Montzinger said that when Seedat issued summons it was before the finalisation of the Lee matter.
"The minister could not as a practical matter have settled or paid the claim before that was decided," he said.
The judge held that from the date of the Lee judgment in December 2012, the ministry knew, or ought to have reasonably known, that the state was liable to pay Seedat damages.
The court would "exercise its discretion" in making the order regarding interest payable. The rate of interest prescribed at that time was 15.5% a year. This would apply to the period between the Lee judgment and the final, court-ordered settlement agreement in March 2026, the judge decided.
This amounted to R717,734, which when added to the settlement meant Seedat was entitled to R1,067,734. This amount would then attract interest of 10.25% a year until the date of payment.
Seedat's attorney Jonathan Cohen, who also represented Lee, said he had handled about 20 similar cases since the apex court ruling and "all have settled".
