CHAPTER 11 - CONDUCT

 Conduct can either be an act or omission.

 Positive conduct = acts / commissions and involves actively doing something. Negative
conduct = omissions / failure to act, avoidance, side stepping etc.
 The conduct must meet legal requirements.

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE ELEMENT OF CONDUCT

 First the conduct must be executed by a human being. Meaning natural disasters do not
count BUT using animals as instruments to carry out harm does count.
 Second, the conduct must be voluntary, meaning the person must have the physical
ability to control their bodily movements). Examples such as sleepwalkers, people who
have strokes, someone who has an allergic reaction and passes out while doing a dangerous
activity. NOT MENTAL HEALTH.
 The wrongdoer may raise the defence of automatism to demonstrate lack of
voluntariness.

THE TYPE OF EVIDENCE YOU NEED TO COLLECT

A man had been sleepwalking and slipped on a banana, falling, and hurting his head quite
badly, however he claimed he felt okay and proceeded to drive his car. Whilst driving he had
a black out due to his injury earlier and crashed into someone. The court found automatism.
However, court can use antecedent liability to rebut automatism.
Failure to take reasonable preventative steps.

 A recollection of events that happened before the automatic state / show what caused the
automatic state.
 What happened during the automatic state plus any medical evidence / surrounding evidence
that supports your version.
 Onus of proof on he who alleges an automatism state and must prove on a balance of
probabilities. (Application: must prove on a balance of probabilities that he suffered from a
blackout that prevented him from having full control of vehicle.) Case is now saying its on
the plaintiff to prove voluntariness therefore defendant does not need to prove automatism.
Idk.
 [Molefe]
 Molefe also authority for automatism, the inability to control one’s physical bodily
movements.
 There are cases in which = antecedent liability.
 The victim can also raise antecedent liability to rebut automatism.

WESSELS = CASE AUTHORITY FOR ANTECEDENT LIABILITY

 The victim / plaintiff raises this.

 The alleged wrongdoer should be able to predict that a state of automatism might be
near and we can argue the wrongdoer should have taken steps to prevent the state of
automatism so harm can be prevented
 In this case, a diabetic driver had a blackout and crashed into another car. The plaintiff
attempted to prove antecedent liability by looking at the events the preceded the blackout.
 The plaintiff / victim stated the wrongdoers were aware the driver had diabetes, had been in
an accident before due to a hypoglycaemic state and that the driver had a difficult time
controlling his diabetic condition.
 Therefore the 1st defendant was negligent in letting then 2nd defendant drive when a blackout
was foreseeable and should have taken steps to guard against another collision.
 His preventative measure could have been eating before driving as he knows he blacks out.