Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa v Mmakgabo Simon Moabelo

On 3 August 2009, the respondent Mmakgabo Simon Moabelo, a 37-year-old man, boarded a train at Kempton Park Station at dusk. He was a fare-paying passenger with a valid weekly ticket. The train was overcrowded, and he had to stand. As the train left Kaalfontein Station, passengers began jostling for door positioning. While standing between the open coach doors holding a pole, the respondent was pushed by fellow passengers and lost his balance, falling out of the moving train. He sustained severe injuries including bilateral amputation of both legs, amputation of fingers on his left hand, fractured left humerus, fractured cervical spine, and brachial plexus injury. PRASA disputed his version, contending that the respondent was a pedestrian who ran or walked in front of an oncoming train (train 1886, driven by Mr van der Mescht) outside the station at approximately 19h13. The respondent had no recollection of events after falling and regained consciousness at the hospital. The trial court separated issues of liability and quantum and found in favour of the respondent on liability. PRASA appealed unsuccessfully to the full court and then to the Supreme Court of Appeal with special leave.

• Whether the trial court was correct in accepting the respondent's version that he was pushed out of a moving train
• Whether the trial court properly rejected the train driver's version that the respondent ran in front of the train
• Whether PRASA breached its duty of care by operating a train with open doors
• Whether the respondent proved factual causation between PRASA's negligence and his injuries
• Whether legal causation (remoteness) was established linking PRASA's negligence to the harm suffered

The appeal was dismissed with costs, including costs of two counsel. PRASA was found liable to the respondent for damages arising from the incident.

The binding legal principles established by the majority are: (1) Public rail carriers like PRASA owe a positive legal duty to passengers to ensure that reasonable safety measures are in place, including ensuring that train doors are closed while trains are in motion; (2) Where trains operate with open doors at peak hours while overcrowded, harm to passengers is reasonably foreseeable; (3) The breach of this duty by operating trains with open doors while in motion constitutes wrongful and negligent conduct; (4) Where a passenger is pushed from a moving train with open doors and sustains injuries, factual and legal causation can be established even if the immediate cause of injury is contact with another train or infrastructure, as the injury is sufficiently proximate to and flows from the initial negligent omission; (5) The duty to keep doors closed is not only imposed by PRASA's own operating procedures but also arises from constitutional rights to bodily integrity and dignity.

The minority judgment contains significant obiter observations: (1) That the principle 'there is no such thing as negligence in the air' means that negligence alone, without consequential damage causally connected to it, cannot found liability; (2) That wrongfulness and negligence are distinct elements and negligence does not determine wrongfulness; (3) That the 'but-for' test for factual causation is based on common sense and the practical way ordinary minds work against everyday experiences, not pure mathematics or philosophy; (4) That courts should carefully distinguish between permissible inference and impermissible conjecture or speculation; (5) That reasoning by way of inference upon inference is generally impermissible; (6) That sympathy for an injured party should not impel a court to a conclusion in their favour; (7) The first principle of delict is that everyone must bear their own loss ('skade rus waar dit val') and Aquilian liability provides only an exception to this rule. The minority also observed that a gap of at least one hour in the respondent's account was never explained, and that the respondent's own evidence was that he 'was never hit by a train' but rather 'fell out of the moving train', which was inconsistent with the findings made in his favour.

This case is significant in South African delict law for its treatment of: (1) the duty of care owed by public rail carriers to passengers; (2) the application of causation principles (both factual and legal) in negligence claims; (3) the distinction between wrongfulness and negligence; (4) the approach to conflicting factual versions and the application of probability principles. The case highlights the tension between the elements of delictual liability and demonstrates how courts may differ on the application of causation principles. It reinforces the constitutional obligation of rail operators under sections relating to bodily integrity and dignity to implement reasonable safety measures, building on precedents like Rail Commuters Action Group and Mashongwa. The dissent provides important guidance on the limits of inference, the 'but-for' test for factual causation, and the role of remoteness in limiting liability.