2008 – Saludaga v. FEU, GR No. 179337 (Security Agency; Student-School Contract; Culpa Contractual; Force Majeure; Liability;)

3.1. DATE OF PROMULGATION

• April 30, 2008

3.2. DECIDING COURT

• Supreme Court of the Philippines

3.3. DIVISION

• Third Division

3.4. PONENTE

• Ynares-Santiago

3.5. CONCURRENCE AND ATTENDANCE

3.5.3. ABSENT/OTHERS

• N/A

3.6. SEPARATE OPINIONS

3.7.PARTIES

3.8. COUNSEL

• N/A

3.9. NATURE OF ACTION

• Petition for Review on Certiorari

3.10. LAWS AND PROVISIONS CITED

• New Civil Code
  • Article 1170
  • Article 2180
  • Article 2224

3.11. CASES CITED

• Powton Conglomerate, Inc. v. Agcolicol, 448 Phil. 643 (2003)
• Mercury Drug Corporation v. Libunao, G.R. No. 144458, 434 SCRA 404, July 14, 2004.
• Soliman, Jr. v. Tuazon, G.R. No. 66207, May 18, 1992, 209 SCRA 47.
• Firestone Tire and Rubber Company of the Philippines v. Tempengko, 137 Phil. 239 (1969).

4.1. FACTS

• On August 18, 1996, petitioner, a sophomore law student of FEU, was shot by Alejandro Rosete (Rosete), one of the security guards on duty at the school premises on August 18, 1996. Petitioner was hospitalized; Rosete was brought to the police where he explained that the shooting was accidental. No formal complaint was filed and the security guard was released.

4.2. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

• RTC Manila, Branch 2
  • Petitioner filed a complaint for damages.
  • Respondents filed a Third-Party Complaint against Galaxy Development and Management Corporation (Galaxy), the agency contracted by respondent to provide security services within its premises and Mariano D. Imperial (Imperial), Galaxy’s President.
  • Galaxy and and Imperial filed a Fourth-Party Complaint against AFP General Insurance.
  • November 10, 2004, the trial court rendered a decision in favor of petitioner ordering
    • FEU and Edilberto de Jesus to pay jointly and severally the petitioner for actual and exemplary damages, along with other fees and costs
    • Galaxy and its president to indemnify jointly and severally 3rd party plaintiffs
    • and dismissed 4th party complaint for lack of cause of action
• Court of Appeals
  • Respondents appealed
  • The Court of Appeals reversed and set aside the RTC Decision
  • Petitioner filed a Motion for Reconsideration but was denied
• Supreme Court
  • Instant petition, hence this case.

4.3. ISSUES

• Whether respondent FEU is liable for damages under the student-school contract?
• Whether respondent’s defense of force majeure applies in this case?
• Whether respondent de Jesus is solidarily liable with respondent FEU?
• Whether respondents are vicariously liable under Article 2180 of the Civil Code?
• Whether Galaxy (the security agency) is liable to respondent?

4.4. HELD

• Whether respondent is liable for damages?
  • Yes.
  • In Philippine School of Business Administration v. Court of Appeals, we held that:
    • When an academic institution accepts students for enrollment, there is established a contract between them, resulting in bilateral obligations which both parties are bound to comply with. For its part, the school undertakes to provide the student with an education that would presumably suffice to equip him with the necessary tools and skills to pursue higher education or a profession. On the other hand, the student covenants to abide by the school’s academic requirements and observe its rules and regulations.
    • Institutions of learning must also meet the implicit or “built-in” obligation of providing their students with an atmosphere that promotes of assists in attaining its primary undertaking of imparting knowledge. Certainly, no student can absorb the intricacies of physics or higher mathematics or explore the realm of the arts and other sciences when bullets are flying or grenades exploding in the air or where there looms around the school premises a constant threat to life and limb. Necessarily, the school must ensure that adequate steps are taken to maintain peace and order within the campus premises and to prevent the breakdown thereof.
  • It is settled that in culpa contractual, the mere proof of the existence of the contract and the failure of its compliance justify, prima facie, a corresponding right of relief.
  • Article 1170 of the Civil Code provides that those who are negligent in the performance of their obligations are liable for damages. Accordingly, for breach of contract due to negligence in providing a safe learning environment, respondent FEU is liable to petitioner for damages.
• Whether respondent’s defense of force majeure applies in this case?
  • No.
  • In order for force majeure to be considered, respondents must show that negligence or misconduct was committed that may have occasioned the loss. An act of God cannot be invoked to protect a person who has failed to take steps to forestall the possible adverse consequences of such a loss. One’s negligence may have concurred with an act of God in producing damage and injury to another; nonetheless, showing that the immediate or proximate cause of the damage or injury was a fortuitous event would not exempt one from liability. When the effect is found to be partly the result of a person’s participation – whether by active intervention, neglect or failure to act – the whole occurrence is humanized and removed from the rules applicable to acts of God.
• Whether respondent de Jesus is solidarily liable with respondent FEU?
  • No.
    • In Powton Conglomerate, Inc. v. Agcolicol, we held that:
      • [A] corporation is invested by law with a personality separate and distinct form those of the persons composing it, such that, save for certain exceptions, corporate officers who entered into contracts in behalf of the corporation cannot be held personally liable for the liabilities of the latter. Personal liability of a corporate director, trustee, or officer along (although not necessarily) with the corporation may so validly attach, as a rule, only when – (1) he assents to a patently unlawful act of the corporation, its stockholders or other persons; (2) he consents to the issuance of watered down stocks or who, having knowledge thereof, does not forthwith file with the corporate secretary his written objection thereto; (3) he agrees to hold himself personally and solidarily liable with the corporation; or (4) he is made by a specific provision of law personally answerable for his corporate action.”
    • None of these foregoing exceptions was established in the instance case; hence respondent De Jesus should not be held solidarily liable with respondent FEU.
• Whether respondents are vicariously liable under Article 2180 of the Civil Code?
  • No.
  • We agree with the finds of the Court of Appeals that respondents cannot be held liable for damages under Art. 2180 of the Civil Code because respondents are not the employers of Rosete. The latter was employed by Galaxy. The instructions issued by respondents’ Security Consultant to Galaxy and its security guards are ordinarily no more than requests commonly envisaged in the contract for services entered into by a principal and a security agency. They cannot be construed as to treat respondents as the employers of Rosete.
  • As held in Mercury Drug Corporation v. Libunao:
    • In Soliman Jr. v. Tuazon, we held that where the security agency recruits, hires and assigns the works of its watchmen or security guards to a client, the employer of such guards or watchmen is such agency, and not the client, since the latter has no hand in selecting the security guards. Thus, the duty to observe the diligence of a good father of a family cannot be demanded from the said client:
    • …[I]t is settled in our jurisdiction that where the security agency, as here, recruits, hires, and assigns the work of its watchmen or security guards, the agency is the employer of such guards or watchmen. Liability for illegal or harmful acts committed by the security guards attaches to the employer agency, and not to the clients or customers of such agency. As a general rule, a client or customer of a security agency has no hand in selecting who among the pool of security guards or watchmen employed by the agency shall be assigned to it; the duty to observe the diligence of a good father of a family in the selection of the guards cannot, in the ordinary course of events, be demanded from the client whose premises or property are protected by the security guards.”
    • xxx xxx xxx The fact that a client company may give instructions or directions to the security guards assigned to it, does not, by itself, render the client responsible as an employer of the security guards concerned and liable for their wrongful acts or omissions.
• Whether Galaxy (the security agency) is liable to respondent?
• Yes
  • In Firestone Tire and Rubber Company of the Philippines v. Tempengko, we held that:
  • The third party complainant is, therefore, a procedural device whereby device whereby a ‘third party’ who is neither a party nor privy to the fact or deed complained of by the plaintiff, may be brought into the case with leave of court, by the defendant, who acts a third-party plaintiff to enforce against such third-party defendant a right for contribution, indemnity, subrogation, or any other relief, in respect of the plaintiff’s claim. The third-party complaint is actually independent of and separate and distinct from the plaintiff’s complaint. Were it not for this provision of the Rules of Court, it would have to be filed independently and separately from the original complaint by the defendant against the third party. But the Rules permit defendant to bring in a third-party defendant or so to speak to litigate his separate cause of action in respect of plaintiff’s claim against a third-party in the original and principal case with the object of avoiding circuitry of action and unnecessary proliferation of law suits and of disposing expeditiously in one litigation the entire subject matter arising from one particular set of facts.
  • For these acts of negligence and for having supplied respondent FEU with an unqualified security guard, which resulted to the latter’s breach of obligation to petitioner, it is proper to hold Galaxy liable to respondent FEU for such damages equivalent to the above-mentioned amounts awarded to petitioner.
  • Unlike respondent De Jesus, we deem Imperial to be solidarily liable with Galaxy for being grossly negligent in directing the affairs of the security agency.

4.5. DISPOSITION

• Petition granted; the Court of Appeals decision reversed; RTC Decision Branch 2 affirmed with modifications.
  • “WHEREFORE, the petition is GRANTED.
  • “The June 29, 2007 Decision of the Court of Appeals in CA-GR C.V. 87050 nullifying the Decision of the trial court and dismissing the complaint as well as the August 23, 2007 Resolution denying the Motion for Reconsideration are REVERSED and SET ASIDE.
  • “The Decision of the Regional Trial Court of Manila, Branch 2, in Civil Case No. 98-89483 finding respondent FEU liable for damages for breach of its obligations to provide students with a safe and secure learning atmosphere is AFFIRMED with the following MODIFICATIONS: “a. respondent Far Eastern University (FEU) is ORDERED to pay petitioner in the actual damages in the amount of P35,298.25, plus 6% interest per annum from the filing of the complaint until the finality of this Decision. After this decision becomes final and executory, the applicable rate shall be twelve percent (12%) per annum until its satisfaction;
  • “b. respondent FEU is also ORDERED to pay petitioner temperate damages in the amount of P20,000.00; moral damages in the amount of P100,000.00; and attorney’s fees and litigation expenses in the amount of P50,000.00;
  • “c. the award of exemplary damages is DELETED.
  • “The Complaint against respondent Edilderto C. De Jesus is DISMISSED.
  • “The counterclaims of respondents are likewise DISMISSED.”
  • “Galaxy Development and Management Corporation (Galaxy) and its president Mariano D. Imperial are ORDERED to jointly and severally pay respondent FEU damages equivalent to the above-mentioned amounts awarded to petitioner.”

4.6. SEPARATE OPINION

• N/A