Worker wins compensation case after 13 years of litigation

After 13 years of litigation and R2.5-million in legal fees, a maintenance fitter who was found by arbitration and several courts to have been unfairly dismissed is a step closer to receiving compensation. Illustration: Lisa Nelson

• Etienne Jordaan, a maintenance fitter dismissed in 2013, has won the right to receive more than R3-million in compensation.
• This follows 13 years of litigation and spending R2.5-million on legal fees.
• Acting Judge Coen de Kock in the Cape Town Labour Court said what began as a straightforward reinstatement order for a worker earning approximately R20,000 a month, became a “13-year legal odyssey”.
• The judge said JSE-listed RCL Foods’s conduct in pursuing every available avenue approached the “borderline of abuse of process” and that its prospects of success on appeal were “at best, slender”.

After 13 years of litigation and R2.5-million in legal fees, a maintenance fitter who was found by arbitration and several courts to have been unfairly dismissed, is a step closer to receiving compensation.

Last week, the Cape Town Labour Court granted an order in favour of Etienne Jordaan, effectively putting an end to years of lawfare.

Acting Judge Coen de Kock’s order – made under the Superior Courts Act – enforces the latest High Court ruling in Jordaan’s favour, that he be paid more than R3-million in compensation. This is despite the JSE-listed company RCL Foods Consumer (Pty) Ltd (formerly Rainbow Farms) had again attempted to appeal it.

The judge said Jordaan’s application concerned whether the rule of law permits a successful litigant – “brought to the verge of financial ruin by 13 years of sustained litigation” – to enforce a judgment that has survived repeated legal challenges while waiting for the fourth appeal from a wealthy corporate opponent.

The judge ruled that Jordaan should be paid despite the pending appeal. If the company later succeeds in its petition to the Labour Appeal Court, it could pursue legal action to recover the money.

Jordaan was employed by the company as a maintenance fitter in Worcester. He was dismissed in January 2013 for dishonesty over alleged clocking offences.

In June 2013, a commissioner at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) found the dismissal unfair and ordered he be reinstated and be back paid.

But when Jordaan reported for duty the next day, he was sent home.

The company then launched a review application, which suspended the CCMA ruling.

In December 2018, the Labour Court dismissed the review application.

The company applied for leave to appeal but later abandoned the application. It instead launched a separate declaratory application seeking to offset the back pay against income it claimed Jordaan had earned elsewhere.

In April 2020, the parties reached an agreement and Jordaan returned to work. However, the amount of the back pay owed to him was referred to private arbitration.

Jordaan was again dismissed in 2023 for another workplace offence, which he did not challenge.

But in May 2024, the arbitrator issued two awards in Jordaan’s favour relating to the earlier dispute. RCL applied to review these awards. The matter was heard before another arbitrator later that year.

In 2025, the arbitrator ordered the company to pay Jordaan over R3-million.

A month later, the company launched another review application, this time in the Labour Court, disputing parts of the award relating to overtime, nightshift and standby allowances.

The Labour Court dismissed the application and later refused the company leave to appeal.

Jordaan then applied for a writ of execution against RCL to attach immoveable property. The company said it had filed a petition for leave to appeal, which automatically suspended the 2025 judgment.

Jordaan then approached the court to enforce the judgment despite the pending appeal.

Judge de Kock said that by the time the matter was heard on 5 March 2026, Jordaan had, on his uncontested evidence, spent about R2.5-million on legal fees, “exhausted his pension fund, sold his vehicle and had his wife surrender her insurance policy”.

Facing financial ruin, Jordaan and his family had relocated to Ireland.

The company raised technical issues and argued that the application was not urgent. It said that Jordaan could “wait another few months” for the Labour Appeal Court to decide whether to hear the appeal.

De Kock rejected this argument, saying the urgency arose largely through the company’s own litigation strategy and that Jordaan’s financial position would “deteriorate beyond the point of recovery”.

The judge said the legal threshold for enforcing a judgment while an appeal is pending is deliberately high and requires “truly exceptional circumstances” to grant such an order.

But, he said, the case history showed only adverse rulings against the company.

“What began as a straightforward reinstatement order for a maintenance fitter, earning approximately R20,000 a month, has become a 13-year legal odyssey resulting in an award of R3,190,807.83 and related legal costs to [Jordaan] of about R2.5 million.

“The financial ruin [Jordaan] faces is the direct and foreseeable consequence of the [company’s] conduct in pursuing every available procedural avenue,” the judge said.

“The [company’s] conduct approaches the borderline of abuse of process, albeit I make no formal finding to that effect.”

He also said the company’s prospects of success on appeal were “at best, slender”.

By contrast, Jordaan faced insolvency and the possible permanent loss of the “very right he has spent 13 years pursuing”.

The judge noted that RCL Foods, with substantial financial resources, faced limited risk if it paid the money now but later succeeded on appeal.

“A JSE-listed company that may have to face the commercial consequence of having to pursue a restitution claim, or having temporarily paid a sum which it recovers with interest, has not suffered irreparable harm,” the Judge said.

De Kock ordered that the judgment awarding Jordaan more than R3-million be enforced despite the pending petition for leave to appeal to the Labour Appeal Court.

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