A decade-long legal dispute over pension benefits is nearing its end, following a recent Constitutional Court ruling. The case began in 2012 when Takalani Mutsila, an employee of the Ba-Phalaborwa Municipality, died in a workplace accident, leaving behind two families who both claimed the right to receive his pension. The Municipal Gratuity Fund initially decided to share the pension between the two families, but one of the families disputed the decision, leading to a 13-year dispute that involved multiple court rulings.
The dispute centered around two women, Tshifhiwa Shembry Mutsila and Dipuo Masete, who both claimed to be Mutsila’s surviving spouse. Tshifhiwa was married to Mutsila in terms of civil law, while Dipuo claimed to have had a customary law marriage with him. The Municipal Gratuity Fund awarded 22.5% of the pension to Tshifhiwa and 27.5% to Dipuo, citing that Dipuo earned much less than Tshifhiwa and was therefore more dependent on Mutsila.
However, Tshifhiwa appealed the decision, hiring a private investigator who found that Dipuo was married to another man and that he was the biological father of her two children. The adjudicator found that the Fund had failed to conduct a proper investigation and directed it to redo the decision. The Fund approached the high court to set aside the adjudicator’s decision, but the high court and a full bench of the high court dismissed the application. The Supreme Court of Appeal later set aside the adjudicator’s decision, stating that the essential issue was whether Dipuo and her children were dependent on Mutsila as a matter of fact.
The Constitutional Court has now ruled that the Fund failed to correctly determine who was the beneficiary of Mutsila’s pension. The court ordered the Fund to redo its decision within three months, providing guidance on how to determine who qualifies as a beneficiary of a pension when someone dies. The Pension Funds Act recognizes two categories of dependents: legal dependents, such as spouses and children, and factual dependents, who are people who were dependent on the deceased at the time of their death.
The court emphasized that the Fund must actively investigate to find and trace all dependents of the deceased and make an equitable distribution of the pension benefit. The Fund’s failure to conduct a proper investigation and verify Dipuo’s claim of being married to Mutsila in terms of customary law was deemed a wrong approach. The court concluded that the allocation and distribution of the pension benefit were tainted by this failure.
The Constitutional Court’s ruling has significant implications for the determination of pension benefits in similar cases. The Fund will now have to make a fresh decision, taking into account the court’s guidance, and determine who is entitled to receive Mutsila’s pension benefits. The decision is expected to be made within three months, finally bringing an end to the decade-long dispute.
