Case Digest (G.R. No. L-10305)
Facts:
Lee Bog & Company v. The Hanover Fire Insurance Company of the City of New York, et al., G.R. No. L-10305, February 28, 1961, the Supreme Court; Bautista Angelo, J., writing for the Court. Plaintiff-appellee Lee Bog & Company sued multiple insurer-defendants (including Hanover Fire Insurance Company, Alliance Insurance & Surety Co., Empire Insurance Co., and others) to recover the face amount of several fire insurance policies aggregating P230,000 issued on the stock of rice and palay stored in its Binalonan, Pangasinan rice mill. The Republic of the Philippines intervened as trustee of the Bureau of Commerce to claim the interest of that bureau under ten of the policies; two depositors, Crispin A. Fernandez and Quirino C. Martinez, also intervened to assert claims as alleged depositors.At the trial level, the Court of First Instance of Pangasinan found the defendants-appellants liable for the face amounts of the policies and entered judgment for plaintiff; the insurers appealed to the Supreme Court. The policies (identified by policy numbers in the record) described coverage of "stock of rice and palay (loose and/or sacks), the property of the assured or held by him in trust, on commission or on joint account," while contained in the insured building. Ten of the policies contained a common "simple loss payable clause" in favor of the Bureau of Commerce; one Hanover policy (No. 1016373) contained a simple loss payable clause favoring People's Surety & Insurance Co., Inc.
Appellants argued on appeal that: (1) because the policies were concurrent and covered the warehouse stock inseparably, the court erred in treating bonded deposits (palay subject to the Bonded Warehouse Act) separately from unbonded palay owned by the appellee; and (2) appellee failed to establish the amount of loss, overstated its claims, and obtained benefits by fraudulent means (commingling rice bran/husk with palay and submitting false declarations). The trial court had relied on documentary and testimonial proof: the quedans (negotiable warehouse receipts) for bonded deposits (Exhibits M, M-1 to M-110 and AQ) showing outstanding bonded deposits of 659,513.5 kilos (≈14,989 cavanes), and accounting records (columnar cash book, Exhibit R) and CPA computations fixing the appellee's unbonded stock at about 14,514.7 cavanes at time of the fire.
The trial court discredited appellants' contentions of fraud and found the minor numerical discr...(Pro-only)
Issues:
- Did the Court of First Instance err in treating bonded palay (deposits under the Bonded Warehouse Act) separately from unbonded palay where multiple concurrent insurance policies covered the warehouse stock?
- Did appellee prove the loss and amount claimed, or do the insurers' allegations of fraud and inflated...(Pro-only)
Ruling:
- (Pro-only)
Ratio:
- (Pro-only)
Doctrine:
- (Pro-only)