- Labour Court allows execution of a R3.19 million arbitration award despite a pending appeal petition by Rainbow Chicken.
- The court finds that 13 years of litigation and repeated legal challenges have created exceptional circumstances justifying immediate enforcement.
- Worker Etienne Jordaan showed severe financial strain after exhausting his pension, selling assets and funding years of legal battles.
A maintenance fitter who spent 13 years fighting his former employer in legal proceedings has been allowed to enforce a R3.19 million arbitration award despite a pending appeal attempt by Rainbow Chicken.
The dispute involves Etienne Jordaan, who was dismissed in January 2013 from his position at a Worcester processing plant operated by the company, then known as Rainbow Farms. A CCMA commissioner later ruled that the dismissal was unfair and ordered that Jordaan be reinstated with back pay.
Instead of reinstating him immediately, the company launched review proceedings in the Labour Court. What followed was more than a decade of litigation involving reviews, arbitration proceedings, and further legal challenges over the calculation of Jordaan’s backpay.
After the matter returned to arbitration to determine the value of the reinstatement entitlement, an arbitrator ruled in February 2025 that the company must pay Jordaan R3,190,807.73, together with interest and costs. Rainbow Chicken challenged that award in the Labour Court, but the review application was dismissed.
The company then filed a petition seeking leave to appeal to the Labour Appeal Court. Under the law, the filing of the petition automatically suspended the judgment. Jordaan responded by approaching the Labour Court for an order allowing the judgment to be executed despite the pending appeal process.
Court considers exceptional circumstances
Acting Judge C de Kock said the law normally suspends the operation of a judgment when an appeal is pending, but courts may depart from that rule where strict requirements are met.
“The threshold is deliberately high,” Judge de Kock said. “What is sought under Section 18(3) is an extraordinary deviation from the norm.”
The judge examined the history of the dispute and concluded that the circumstances were far from ordinary. Jordaan had succeeded in every adjudicative process where the dispute had been considered.
“Every single adjudicative process in which this dispute has been determined has produced a finding adverse to the Respondent,” Judge De Kock wrote.
The court emphasised that the original CCMA reinstatement order dated back to June 2013. Jordaan was only reinstated in April 2020 after years of litigation.
“The Respondent’s conduct over thirteen years, including its refusal to reinstate the Applicant for seven years after a binding CCMA award and its serial challenges before every forum, constitutes a constellation of circumstances that is, by any measure, truly exceptional.”
Financial toll on the worker
The court also examined the personal impact of the prolonged litigation on Jordaan.
Evidence before the court showed that he had incurred approximately R2.5 million in legal costs, exhausted his pension fund, sold his vehicle, and relied on his wife surrendering an insurance policy in order to fund the legal battle.
Judge De Kock noted that this evidence was not meaningfully challenged by the company.
“The Applicant’s evidence of financial collapse is uncontradicted.”
The court rejected the argument that Jordaan could simply wait for the appeal process to run its course. According to the judgment, the harm caused by continued delay could not be addressed merely through interest on the award.
“Interest does not compensate for the Applicant’s exhausted pension, for the depletion of his wife’s policy, or for the real risk that further delay will result in his insolvency.”
Appeal arguments face difficulty
The court also considered the prospects of success in the company’s pending appeal petition.
The central dispute concerns whether Jordaan’s reinstatement entitlement includes overtime, night shift and standby allowances during the period between 2013 and 2020 when he should have been reinstated.
Judge De Kock said the argument relied on by the company had not been properly raised during earlier proceedings.
“A point raised for the first time in supplementary argument, not pleaded, not part of the arbitration mandate, and not forming part of the review grounds, cannot constitute a reasonable prospect of success on appeal.”
The judge noted that similar arguments had already been rejected by two arbitrators and by the Labour Court.
Property used as security
Rainbow Chicken argued that it could suffer prejudice if the money was paid out and the appeal later succeeded, particularly because Jordaan now lives in Ireland.
The court acknowledged that the concern was legally recognised but concluded that adequate protection existed.
Jordaan still owns a property in Worcester jointly with his wife, Hermie Jordaan, and both undertook not to sell the property or register additional bonds over it while the appeal process continues.
Judge De Kock said this undertaking provided sufficient protection for the company’s potential restitution claim.
“A JSE-listed company paying a judgment debt of R3,190,807.73 to an individual, with the benefit of a court-incorporated undertaking restricting the disposal of that individual’s property, does not suffer irreparable harm.”
Judgment may be executed
The court ultimately concluded that all three requirements of Section 18(3) of the Superior Courts Act had been satisfied.
Judge De Kock said the automatic suspension of judgments during appeals should not become a tool that prolongs litigation indefinitely.
“A party that, through sustained litigation, reduces its opponent to financial ruin cannot then invoke the automatic suspension as though the resulting predicament is merely incidental.”
The Labour Court therefore ordered that the earlier judgment dismissing the review application may be executed immediately despite the pending appeal petition. Rainbow Chicken was also ordered to pay the costs of the application.
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