Dirk Willem Potgieter v Samancor Chrome Limited t/a Tubatse Ferrochrome

Mr Dirk Willem Potgieter was dismissed by Samancor Chrome Limited on 24 October 2006. An unfair dismissal dispute was referred to the MEIBC, which on 25 June 2008 found the dismissal substantively and procedurally unfair and awarded compensation equivalent to 12 months’ remuneration. Mr Potgieter unsuccessfully sought review in the Labour Court but succeeded on appeal to the Labour Appeal Court (LAC) on 12 June 2014, which ordered his retrospective reinstatement. Samancor’s further appeal to the Constitutional Court was dismissed on 3 September 2014. Mr Potgieter was actually reinstated on 23 July 2015 and the employment relationship was later terminated by mutual separation on 30 November 2015. A subsequent dispute arose regarding entitlement to arrear remuneration for the period between the arbitration award and the LAC reinstatement order. After declaratory proceedings in the Labour Court clarified that such arrear remuneration constituted a contractual claim subject to proof and defences, Mr Potgieter instituted a claim on 20 July 2018. Samancor raised a special plea of prescription, which the Labour Court upheld, finding the claim had prescribed.

The appeal was upheld. The Labour Court’s judgment and order upholding the special plea of prescription were set aside, and the respondent’s prescription defence was dismissed, allowing Mr Potgieter’s claim for arrear remuneration to proceed.

The judgment clarifies, within South African labour jurisprudence, when prescription begins to run in respect of contractual claims for arrear wages following retrospective reinstatement. It affirms that such claims only accrue upon actual reinstatement and not on the date of the reinstatement order. It also develops the law on interruption of prescription in labour disputes, confirming that staggered and interrelated proceedings may interrupt prescription under section 15 of the Prescription Act.