News24 reports that the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has overturned a high court decision that ordered the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) education department to pay R1.3 million to a teacher who retired early because of alleged discrimination on the part of her former principal.

In a judgment on Friday, Acting Judge Peter Olsen overturned the decision of the KZN High Court, saying many elements to prove "wrongfulness" were missing. Mayadevi Singh claimed the department's failure to address the ongoing victimisation by the school principal, identified in court papers as Mr Padayachee, led to her suffering from clinical depression and forced her to retire early. She argued this resulted in a loss of income for seven years of her career, for which she sought compensation. The judge pointed out that Singh had a grievance that fell within the definition of misconduct, and had she lodged a grievance the department would have been obliged to take specified measures to put an end to the victimisation. He emphasised that the high court judgment primarily focused on Singh's perspective, overlooking the department's responsibility for a vast number of teachers. "In my view, a more complete picture of the factual background against which Ms Singh sues does not support a claim that it would be reasonable to hold the department liable in delict for the financial consequences of Ms Singh's early retirement. Wrongfulness was, therefore, not established.” Singh has now landed with no payout and the legal costs.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Kaveel Singh at News24 (subscriber access only)
• Read too, Teacher’s R1.3m payout for victimisation scrapped, at TimesLIVE Premium (subscriber access only)

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