The applicant is a South African company operating a specialist medical institution. In October 2016, two firefighters employed by the respondent (City of Harare) were involved in a fire accident and suffered serious injuries. The respondent sought specialist treatment for its injured employees from the applicant's hospital in South Africa. The two firefighters were admitted on 18 October 2016 and received specialist medical care, being discharged in January and March 2017 respectively. The respondent guaranteed payment for fees and costs arising from their treatment. After discharge, the respondent made certain payments, with the last payment made on 20 July 2017. An outstanding balance of ZAR 918,549.27 remained unpaid. The applicant brought an application for summary judgment to recover this outstanding amount plus interest and costs.
The application for summary judgment was dismissed with no order as to costs.
In a summary judgment application under Rule 64 of the High Court Rules, 1971, the applicant must verify both the cause of action and the amount claimed through documentary evidence. Where a creditor claims a specific monetary amount and the debtor disputes the correctness of that amount, the applicant must produce documentary proof (such as invoices, statements, or accounting records) that establishes the total debt, payments made, and the outstanding balance. Mere correspondence between parties, without underlying documentation substantiating the precise figure claimed, is insufficient to verify a liquidated amount of money for purposes of summary judgment. Where such documentary verification is absent and could reasonably have been produced by the applicant, summary judgment cannot be granted even if some underlying debt may be owed.
The court made several non-binding observations: (1) Summary judgment is a procedure designed to protect plaintiffs against ill-disposed defendants who defend matters purely to delay finalization, and is intended to prevent abuse of court procedure by recalcitrant defendants. (2) Not every defence raised will succeed in defeating a summary judgment application - only a bona fide defence with sufficient clarity and completeness will suffice. (3) The court retains discretion to refuse summary judgment even where an unanswerable case is established. (4) Applications for summary judgment may be brought where the claim is based on a liquid document or for a liquidated amount of money, but Rule 64(3) does not demand that attached documents be an acknowledgment of debt or a liquid document. (5) In summary judgment proceedings, the ordinary course is to order costs to be in the cause or to be decided by the trial court. (6) A defendant with a triable issue should not be shut out from having their day in court, as the procedure is not intended to deprive defendants with sustainable defences of a trial.
This case reinforces the strict requirements for summary judgment applications in Zimbabwean law, particularly the requirement to verify the amount claimed with documentary evidence. It establishes that mere correspondence between parties, without underlying invoices or accounting documents, is insufficient to verify a claim for a specific monetary amount. The case demonstrates that courts will not grant summary judgment based solely on assertions, even from institutional creditors, where the amount claimed is disputed and documentary proof is reasonably available but not produced. It also illustrates the court's discretion on costs in summary judgment applications where the defendant succeeds on technical grounds but some underlying liability appears to exist. The judgment emphasizes that summary judgment is a drastic remedy that should not deprive defendants with triable issues of their day in court.