TRANSPORTATION LAW CASES- ADMIRALTY AND MARITIME COMMERCE

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. L-29166 October 22, 1928

AUGUSTO LOPEZ, plaintiff-appellant,

vs.
JUAN DURUELO, ET AL., defendants.
ALBINO JISON, appellee.

Angel S. Gamboa for appellant.

Feria and La O for appellee.

STREET, J.:

This action was instituted in the Court of First Instance of Occidental Negros by Augusto Lopez, for
the purpose of recovering damages for personal injuries inflicted upon him by reason of the
negligence of the defendants, Juan Duruelo and Albino Jison. The defendants demurred to the
complaint, and the demurrer having been sustained, the plaintiff elected to stand upon his complaint,
which was accordingly dismissed; and the plaintiff appealed.

The facts necessary to an understanding of the case as set out in the complaint are briefly these:

On February 10, 1927, the plaintiff, who is a resident of the municipality of Silay,
Occidental Negros, was desirous of embarking upon the interisland steamer San Jacinto in order to
go to Iloilo. This boat was at the time in the anchoring-ground of the port of Silay, some half a mile
distant from the port. The plaintiff therefore embarked at the landing in the motor boat Jison, which
was then engaged in conveying passengers and luggage back and forth from the landing to boats at
anchor, and which was owned and operated by the defendant Albino Jison, with Juan Duruelo as
patron. The engineer (maquinista) aboard on this trip was one Rodolin Duruelo, a boy of only 16
years of age. He is alleged to have been a mere novice without experience in the running of motor
boats; and the day of the occurrence now in contemplation is said to have been the third day of his
apprenticeship in this capacity. It is alleged that the Jison, upon this trip, was grossly overladen,
having aboard fourteen passengers, while its capacity was only for eight or nine. As the motor boat
approached the San Jacinto in a perfectly quiet sea, it came too near to the stern of the ship, and as
the propeller of the ship had not yet ceased to turn, the blades of the propeller struck the motor boat
and sank it at once. It is alleged in the complaint that the approach of the Jison to this dangerous
proximity with the propeller of the San Jacinto was due to the fault, negligence and lack of skill of the
defendant Juan Duruelo, as patron of the Jison. As the Jison sank, the plaintiff was thrown into the
water against the propeller, and the revolving blades inflicted various injuries upon him, consisting of
a bruise in the breast, two serious fractures of the bones of the left leg, and a compound fracture of
the left femur. As a consequence of these injuries the plaintiff was kept in bed in a hospital in the City
of Manila from the 28th of February until October 19 of the year 1927, or approximately eight
months. In the conclusion of his complaint the plaintiff sets out the various items of damage which he
suffered, amounting in all to something more than P120,000. These damages he seeks to recover of
the defendants in this action.

As a general ground of demurrer it is assigned by the defendants that the complaint does not show a
right of action, and in the course of the argument submitted with the demurrer attention is directed to
the fact that the complaint does not allege that a protest had been presented by the plaintiff, within
twenty-four hours after the occurrence, to the competent authority at the port where the accident
occured. It is accordingly insisted that, under article 835 of the Code of Commerce, the plaintiff has
shown no cause of action.

Assuming that the article of the Code of Commerce relied upon states a condition precedent to the
maintenance of an action in case where protest is required and that the making of protest must be
alleged in the complaint in order to show a good cause of action an assumption that is possibly
without basis, for the reason that lack of protest in a case where protest is necessary would seem to
supply matter of defense proper to be set up in the answer, we nevertheless are of the opinion
that protest was not necessary in the case now before us. The article in question (835, Code of
Com.) is found in the section dealing with collisions, and the context shows the collisions intended
are collisions of sea-going vessels. Said article cannot be applied to small boats engaged in river
and bay traffic. The Third Book of the Code of Commerce, dealing with Maritime Commerce, of
which the section of Collisions forms a part, was evidently intended to define the law relative to
mechant vessels and marine shipping; and, as appears from said Code, the vessels intended in that
Book are such as are run by masters having special training, with the elaborate apparatus of crew
and equipment indicated in the Code. The word "vessel" (Spanish "buque," "nave"), used in the
section referred to was not intended to include all ships, craft or floating structures of every kind
without limitation, and the provisions of that section should not be held to include minor craft
engaged only in river and bay traffic. Vessels which are licensed to engage in maritime commerce,
or commerce by sea, whether in foreign or coastwise trade, are no doubt regulated by Book III of the
Code of Commerce. Other vessels of a minor nature not engaged in maritime commerce, such as
river boats and those carrying passengers from ship to shore, must be governed, as to their liability
to passengers, by the provisions of the Civil Code or other appropriate special provisions of law.

This conclusion is substantiated by the writer Estasen who makes comment upon the word "vessel"
to the following effect:

When the mercantile codes speak of vessels, they refer solely and exclusively to merchant
ships, as they do not include war ships furthermore, they almost always refer to craft which
are not accessory to another as is the case of launches, lifeboats, etc. Moreover, the
mercantile laws, in making use of the words ship, vessels, boat, embarkation, etc., refer
exclusively to those which are engaged in the transportation of passengers and freight from
one port to another or from one place to another; in a word, they refer to merchant vessels
and in no way can they or should they be understood as referring to pleasure craft, yachts,
 pontoons, health service and harbor police vessels, floating storehouses, warships or patrol
vessels, coast guard vessels, fishing vessels, towboats, and other craft destined to other
uses, such as for instance coast and geodetic survey, those engaged in scientific research
and exploration, craft engaged in the loading and discharge of vessels from same to shore or
docks, or in transhipment and those small craft which in harbors, along shore, bays, inlets,
coves and anchorages are engaged in transporting passengers and baggage. (Estasen, Der.
Mer., vol IV, p. 195.)

In Yu Con vs. Ipil (41 Phil., 770), this court held that a small vessel used for the transportation of
merchandise by sea and for the making of voyages from one port to another of these Islands,
equipped and victualed for this purpose by its owner, is a vessel, within the purview of the Code of
Commerce, for the determination of the character and effect of the relations created between the
owners of the merchandise laden on it and its owner. In the case before us the Jison, as we are
informed in the complaint, was propelled by a second-hand motor, originally used for a tractor plow;
and it had a capacity for only eight persons. The use to which it was being put was the carrying of
passengers and luggage between the landing at Silay and ships in the harbor. This was not such a
boat as is contemplated in article 835 of the Code of Commerce, requiring protest in case of
collision.

In Yu Con vs. Ipil, supra, the author of the opinion quotes a passage from the treaties on Mercantile
Law by Blanco. We now have before us the latest edition of Blanco, and we reproduced here, in both
Spanish and English, not only the passage thus quoted but also the sentence immediately following
said passage; and this latter part of the quotation is quite pertinent to the point now under
consideration.

Says Blanco:

Las palabras "nave" y "buque", en su sentido gramatical se aplican para designar cualquier
clase de embarcaciones, grandes o pequenas, mercantes o de guerra, significacion que no
difiere esencialmente de la juridica, con arreglo a la cual se consideran buques para los
efectos del Codigo y del Reglamento para la organizacion del Registro mencantile, no solo
las embarcaciones destinadas a la navegacion de cabo taje o altura, sino tambien los diques
flotantes, pontones, dragas, ganguiles y cualquier otro aparato flotante destinado a servicios
de la industria o del comercio maritimo. "Aun cuando, corforme a este concepto legal,
parece que todo aparato flotante que sirve directamente para el trasporte de cosas o
personas, o que inderectamente se relacionen con esta industria, han de sujertarse a los
preceptos del Codigo sobre propiedad, transmision, derechos, inscripciones, etc.,
entendemos con el Sr. Benito (obra cit.) y asi ocurre en la practica, que no son aplicables a
las pequeas embarcaciones, que solo estan sujetas a los de la administracion de marina
para el servicio de los puertos o ejercicio de la industria de la pesca. (Blanco, Der. Mer., vol.
II, pag. 22.)

The words "ship" (nave) and "vessel" (buque), in their grammatical sense, are applied to designate
every kind of craft, large or small, merchant vessels or war vessels, a signification which does not
differ essentially from its juridical meaning, according to which vessels for the purposes of the Code
and Regulations for the organization of the Mercantile Registry, are considered not only those
engaged in navigation, whether coastwise or on the high seas, but also floating docks, pantoons,
dredges, scows and any other floating apparatus destined for the service of the industry or maritime
commerce.

Yet notwithstanding these principles from which it would seem that any

floating apparatus which serves directly for the transportation of things or persons or which
inderectly is related to this industry, ought to be subjected to the principles of the Code with
reference to ownership, transfer, rights, registration, etc., we agre with Benito (obra cit.) and
it so happens in practice that they are not aplicable to small which are subject to
administrative (customs) regulations in the matter of port service and in the fishing industry. 1awph!l.net

We may add that the word "nave" in Spanish, which is used interchangeably with "buque" in the
Code of Commerce, means, according to the Spanish-English Dictionary complied by Edward R.
Bensley and published at Paris in the year 1896, "Ship, a vessel with decks and sails." Particularly
significant in this definition is the use of the word "decks" since a deck is not a feature of the smallest
types of water craft.

In this connection a most instructive case from a Federal Court in the United States is that of the
Mamie (5 Fed., 813), wherein it was held that only vessels engaged in what is ordinarily known as
maritime commerce are within the provisions of law conferring limited liability on the owner in case
maritime disaster. In the course of the opinion in that case the author cites the analogous provisions
in the laws of foreign maritime, nations, especially the provisions of the Commercial Code of France;
and it is observed that the word "vessel" in these codes is limited to ships and other sea-going
vessels. "Its provisions are not applicable," said the court, "to vessels in inland navigation, which are
especially designated by the name of boats." Quoting from the French author Dufour (1 Droit Mer.,
121), the writer of the opinion in the case cited further says: "Thus, as a general rule, it appears to
me clearly, both by the letter and spirit of the law, that the provisions of the Second Book of the
Commercial Code [French] relate exclusively to maritime and not to fluvial navigation; and that
consequently the word 'ship' when it is found in these provisions, ought to be understand in the
sense of a vessel serving the purpose of maritime navigation of seagoing vessel, and not in the
sense of a vessel devoted to the navigation of rivers."

It is therefore clear that a passenger on a boat like the Jison, in the case before us, is not required to
make protest as a condition precedent to his right of action for the injury suffered by him in the
collision described in the complaint. In other words, article 835 of the Code of Commerce does not
apply. But even if said provision had been considered applicable to the case in hand, a fair
interpretation of the allegations of the complaint indicates, we think, that the injuries suffered by the
plaintiff in this case were of such a nature as to excuse protest; for, under article 836, it is provided
that want to protest cannot prejudice a person not in a condition to make known his wishes. An
individual who has suffered a compound fracture of the femur and received other physical injuries
sufficient to keep him in a hospital for may months, cannot be supposed to have in a condition to
make protest within twenty-four hours of such occurrence. It follows that the demurrer in this case
was not well taken and should have been overruled.
In their brief in this court the attorneys for the defendant have criticised the complaint for a general
lack of certainty and precision in more than one respect. However, we have read the document
attentively and, in our opinion, it states a good cause of action upon a civil liability arising from tort
under articles 1902 and 1903 of the Civil Code, and our attention has not been drawn to any
provision of law which would constitute an obstacle to the maintenance of the action.

We have repeatedly called the attention of trial courts to the general rule that a case should not be
dismissed on demurrer when, under any reasonable interpretation of the complaint, a cause of
action can be made out; and the fact that a complaint is inartificially drawn or in a certain degree
lacking in precision constitutes no sufficient reason for dismissing it. In passing upon a demurrer,
every reasonable intendment is to be taken in favor of the pleader. In this connection it should be
borne in mind that if a complaint does not show a good cause of action, the action can be dismissed
at a later stage of the proceedings; and even where no objection has been previously made, the
point can be raised in the Supreme Court under section 93 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Abiera
vs. Orin, 8 Phil., 193). Little or no appreciable prejudice to the defendant will therefore ordinarily
result from overruling a demurrer, and no harm is done to anyone by requiring the defendant to
answer. On the contrary, grave prejudice may result to a plaintiff from the erroneous sustaining of a
demurrer, because of the delay and even expense necessary to set the matter right upon appeal.

The judgment appealed from is reversed, the demurrer overruled, and the defendant is required to
answer the complaint within five days after notification of the return of this decision to the court of
origin. So ordered, with costs against the appellee.

Johnson, Malcolm, Villamor and Romualdez, JJ., concur.

Ostrand, J., concurs in the result.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. L-15260 August 18, 1920

FAUSTO RUBISO, plaintiff-appellant,

vs.
FLORENTINO RIVERA, ET AL., defendants-appellees.

Canillas and Cardenas for appellant.

M. P. Leuterio for appellees.

VILLAMOR, J.:

About April, 1915, Fausto Rubiso and Florentino Rivera had a litigation concerning the ownership of
the pilot boat Valentina. Rivera acquired it on January 4, 1915, from its original owner the Chinaman
Sy Qui, but did not inscribe his title in the mercantile registry according to article 573 of the Code of
Commerce in relation to article 2 of Act No. 1900. Subsequently Rubiso bought said pilot boat in a
sale at public auction for the sum of P55.45 on January 23, 1915, and inscribed his title in the
mercantile registry on March 4th of the same year. The suit was decided by the Court of First
Instance of Manila in favor of the plaintiff Rubiso on September 6, 1915. On the 11th day of said
month the court issued a writ of execution, upon the petition of the plaintiff, in order to proceed, as
said plaintiff alleged, to the salvage of the pilot boat which at that time was stranded in the sitio of
Tingloy, Batangas. The order of execution was stayed upon the filing of a bond for P1,800 by the
defendant Rivera who alleged in support of his objection, that the pilot boat was already salvaged
and had been taken to Maricaban, Batangas. The judgment having been brought to this court by
appeal it was affirmed in a judgment rendered on October 30, 1917 (R.G. N. 11407). 1 The cause
having been sent to the Court of First Instance for the execution of judgment the sheriff of Batangas
who undertook to enforce the writ of execution was able to deliver to the plaintiff Rubiso nothing but
the pilot boat itself in a seriously damaged condition and two useless sails.

Such are the facts which gave rise to the present action for the recovery of the damages in the sum
of P1,200 which the plaintiff and appellant Fausto Rubiso alleges he has suffered by the destruction
and loss of the pilot boat Valentina and its equipment which were caused, according to the
complaint, by the fault and negligence of the defendants Florentino Rivera and others.

The answer having been filed and the trial having taken place, the court rendered judgment in favor
of the defendants without any special pronouncement as to costs. From this judgment the plaintiff
appealed. The motion for new trial having been overruled, the appellant presented the
corresponding bill of exceptions assigning in his brief the following a errors: (a) The finding that there
was not sufficient evidence to establish the amount of the expenses sought to be recovered; (b) the
finding that the pilot boat Valentina had no legal value in August, 1915; (c) in rendering judgment
absolving the defendants in this case; and (d) in overruling the motion for new trial presented by the
plaintiff on the ground that the judgment is against the weight of the evidence.

In a series of uninterrupted decision before and after the promulgation of the Civil Code, the doctrine
has been established that all judgment for damages whether arising from a breach of contract or
resulting from some provision of law, must be based upon satisfactory evidence of the real existence
of the damages alleged to have been suffered. (Sanz vs. Lavin and Bros., 6 Phil., 299.)

Has the existence of the damages sought to be recovered in this case been satisfactorily
established? The court below decided this question of fact adversely to the plaintiff and we are of the
opinion that this findings is sustained by the evidence. Plaintiff declares that in February, 1915, he
visited and examined the pilot boat Valentina in the barrio of Tingloy and that on said day he found it
in good condition, and that he saw all of its tackle and rigging; but on cross-examination by the
attorney for the defendants he admitted that on said date he was unable to take possession of the
vessel because the person in charge of it would not permit him even to approach. Estanislao Jili who
accompanied Fausto Rubiso in order to see the pilot boat Valentina in February, 1915, affirms that
they did not go on board the vessel because the person in charge of it would not permit them to do
so. This same witness and Jose Soriano as a witness of the plaintiff state that at that time the boat
was not in a seaworthy condition, because its bottom was damaged and it had no equipments.
If what has been said is not yet sufficient to find that the pretense of the appellant as to his first
assignment of error is unsustainable, we still have the uncontradicted testimony of Juan Velino,
Irineo Martinez and Mariano Villas, witnesses for the defendants, who declared on the seriously
damaged condition of the pilot boat long before its acquisition by the appellant.

Juan Velino declared that in August, 1914, the boat was aground in Dayhagan, Mindoro; it was
somewhat repaired and about November of the same year it sailed from that place and suffered on
the way such damages and troubles that it had to be taken to Tingloy for new repair, some vessels'
tools and equipments having been borrowed from another boat because those of the Valentina had
been destroyed; and the storm destroyed the vessel so much that it could not be taken to the Island
of Maricaban except by means of rafts. To the same effect is the testimony of Irineo Martinez.
Mariano Villas testified that in December, 1914, the Valentina anchored in Tingloy alongside his
vessel and as he was interested in the purchase of this pilot boat, the sale of which was advertised
in Manila, he examined it and then saw that he would not buy it even for P400, because it was
completely destroyed. There can be no doubt as to the competency of this witness to testify on the
question of the price of the pilot boat Valentina because according to him he had ordered the
construction of boats of the same size and condition during that period. The lower court declares in
its judgment that this witness appears to it as sufficiently trustworthy, and we find no basis whatever
on the record to doubt the correctness of the finding of the trial judge who saw and observed him
while he was testifying.

We, therefore, are of the opinion that the finding of the court that there was not sufficient proof to
establish the amount of the defendants' claim is in accordance with the merits of the case.

As to the second error assigned by the appellant it should be noted that, as appears in the record
the pilot boat Valentina was stranded in Tingloy since the month of November, 1914, that is, two
months before it had been acquired by the plaintiff at public auction and ten months before the
judgment declaring him to be the owner thereof, was rendered. The appellant, in his first complaint
of April 10, 1915, for the recovery of the pilot boat Valentina, affirms that the boat was then in the
same worthless condition in which it was in 1914, and the evidence we have examined in this case
show that in fact in August or September, 1915, it was in the worse of conditions and was utterly
worthless. Without attempting to determine the durability of a boat made of wood stranded for a
period of ten months, as is the case with the boat in question, we are of the opinion, and so declare,
that according to the proofs adduced in this case, the court did not err in declaring in its judgment
that the pilot boat Valentina did not have any legal value in August, 1915.

The defendant in his brief interposes the defense of res judicata based upon the judgment of this
court in the action between Fausto Rubiso et al. and Florentino Rivera who are the parties in the
present case.

In that case it was held:

With respect to the indemnification for damages claimed by the plaintiff, besides the fact [that
according to the proceedings taken subsequently to the date on which the judgment
appealed from was rendered, it appears that the pilot boat has already left in good condition
the place where it had been stranded and is at present found anchored in the port of
 Maricaban,] the truth is that the record does not offer positive proof of the amount of the
damages caused, and on the other hand it cannot be declared that the defendant had acted
in bad faith for he acquired the vessel previous to its acquisition at public auction by the
plaintiff Rubiso who, for the reason already given, is the true and sole owner of said pilot
boat. (Decision of October 30, 1917, R. G. No. 11407 [Rubiso and Gelito vs. Rivera, 37 Phil.,
72].)

It having been declared in a previous action that the defendant Rivera did not act in bad faith and
that therefore he was not liable for damages, it would be necessary to show in the present case that
the destruction of the boat and the loss of its equipments took place after the final judgment was
rendered in that case and by reason of the fault and negligence of the defendants, which is not the
case here. What appears from the evidence presented by the defendant and uncontradicted by that
presented by the adverse parties, is that from September, 1915, to March 7, 1918, which was the
date of the execution of the judgment of this court affirming that of the lower court, the boat
continued aground in the Island of Maricaban awaiting the final judgment in the action with respect to
ownership and naturally exposed to the action of sea water and the inclemencies of the weather,
things which were beyond the control of the defendant Rivera.

It thus now appears that the damages claimed by the plaintiff are the same damages that he claimed
in the first action. To speak more accurately, the appellant first sued for the recovery of the vessel
and damages in the sum of P1,750. Judgment was rendered as to the first in his favor but against
him as to the second. And now he comes back again claiming damages.

The case now under consideration is analogous to that of Palanca Tanguinlay vs. Quiros (10 Phil.,
360). In that case the question was extensively discussed whether a previous judgment constitutes
an adjudication of the subject-matter of a new suit between the same parties to such extent that it
can not again be tried anew. It was held that according to articles 306 and 307 of the Code of Civil
Procedure, a judgment rendered in an action for the recovery damages for property lost is a bar to
any other action between the same parties for the recovery of the same property or its value. In the
course of the decision the court held:

The American books are full of similar cases, an instance being Hatch vs. Coddington (32
Minn., 92), in which it was held that a former action between the same parties to recover
damages for a wrongful conversion of personal property was a bar to a subsequent suit to
recover possession of the specific property itself, notwithstanding the difference of form and
that the relief sought and the subject-matter of the cause of action were regarded as the
same. Nor is it altogether clear that the law of Spain was different. Seor Manresa, in his
commentary on article 1252 of the Civil Code, cites a decision of the supreme court of 25th
of April, 1900 (vol. 8, p. 555), holding that in a real action a judgment in a former personal
suit between the same parties for indemnity for the use of the same property operated
as cosa juzgada.

From what has been said the judgment appealed from should be, and is hereby, affirmed, with costs
against the appellant. So ordered.

Mapa, C.J., Johnson, Carson, Araullo, Malcolm, Avancea and Moir, JJ., concur.