Le Roux and Another v Johannes G Coetzee & Seuns and Another [2023] ZACC 46

Pieter Paul Le Roux and Johanna Catharina Le Roux (the applicants) were granted an option to purchase a farm owned by Mr. Jan Harmse Steenkamp. The option was to be exercised within two months of Mr. Steenkamp's death, which occurred on September 13, 2003. The applicants mandated Mr. Daniel Cornelius Coetzee, a legal practitioner practicing at Johannes G Coetzee & Seuns (the respondents), to advise them and exercise the option on their behalf. Mr. Coetzee informed the applicants that the option was valid and that he would write a letter to the executor of Mr. Steenkamp's estate to exercise the option, assuring the applicants that their signatures were not required for this process.

However, unbeknownst to the applicants, the farm had already been sold and transferred to another individual, Mr. Paul Steenkamp Nel, before they attempted to exercise their option. The applicants, therefore, initiated legal action (the first action) against Mr. Steenkamp's estate and Mr. Nel to enforce the option and claim the transfer of the property. This action was dismissed on the basis that the exercise of the option was ineffectual due to non-compliance with section 2(1) of the Alienation of Land Act, as Mr. Coetzee had failed to obtain the applicants' written authority.

It was only during the trial of the first action that the applicants learned of the non-compliance with the Alienation of Land Act and the ineffectual exercise of the option by Mr. Coetzee. Consequently, the applicants brought an action for breach of mandate seeking damages against the respondents (the breach of mandate action). The respondents filed a special plea of prescription, arguing that the applicants' claim had prescribed because the applicants should have been aware of the non-compliance with the Alienation of Land Act earlier, either when the option lapsed or when they changed legal practitioners in 2005.


The High Court dismissed the special plea of prescription, but the Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the appeal, finding that the applicants had the minimum facts necessary to institute their claim either when they first consulted with Mr. Coetzee or when the option expired. The applicants then sought leave to appeal to the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

The Constitutional Court of South Africa applied the law to the facts of the case by interpreting section 12(3) of the Prescription Act in the context of a professional negligence claim against legal practitioners. The Court recognised that the general rule is that knowledge of legal conclusions is not required for prescription to commence running. However, the Court found that this rule would lead to an unjust outcome in the specific context of legal professional negligence, where a client's claim is based on incorrect legal advice or the failure to discharge a mandate by overlooking a legal requirement.

The applicants were given incorrect legal advice by their attorney, Mr. Coetzee, regarding the exercise of an option to purchase a farm. The applicants were unaware that the advice was incorrect and that the option had not been validly exercised until it was revealed during cross-examination in a related legal action. This knowledge only emerged as a result of a legal conclusion that the exercise of the option was ineffectual due to non-compliance with the Alienation of Land Act.

The Court concluded that the applicants did not have the requisite knowledge of the breach of mandate until the cross-examination in 2007. Therefore, prescription could not have commenced before this point. The Court carved out a limited exception to the general rule, holding that in cases of professional negligence against legal practitioners, knowledge that the advice received was incorrect or that a mandate was not properly discharged may be regarded as facts for the purposes of section 12(3) of the Prescription Act. This exception was necessary to prevent the unjust outcome of a claim being prescribed without the client's knowledge of the attorney's breach of mandate.

In summary, the Court applied the law to the facts by recognizing the unique nature of the attorney-client relationship, the reliance of clients on legal advice, and the need for an exception to the general rule on prescription to ensure that clients are not unfairly prejudiced by their attorneys' professional negligence.