Title
Bascos vs. Court of Appeals
Case
G.R. No. 101089
Decision Date
Apr 7, 1993
CIPTRADE subcontracted petitioner to deliver goods; failure due to hijacking led to liability. SC ruled petitioner a common carrier, liable for non-delivery, hijacking not force majeure.
common carrier
loss of cargo
hijacking incident
A

Case Summary (G.R. No. 127139)

Procedural History

CIPTRADE contracted to haul 2,000 m/tons of soya bean meal for Jibfair Shipping. CIPTRADE subcontracted petitioner to carry 400 sacks (P156,404.00 value). Petitioner allegedly failed to deliver the cargo. CIPTRADE paid Jibfair under the primary contract’s liability clause and sued petitioner for reimbursement of the cargo value and damages, attaching petitioner’s property by writ of preliminary attachment. The trial court found for plaintiff and ordered petitioner to pay P156,404.00 with interest, attorney’s fees and costs; the Court of Appeals affirmed; petitioner sought review by this Court raising three assignments of error concerning the nature of the contract (lease vs. carriage), force majeure (hijacking), and the preliminary attachment’s status.

Issues Presented

  1. Whether the contractual relationship between petitioner and CIPTRADE constituted a contract of carriage by a common carrier or a lease of a truck.
  2. Whether the alleged hijacking constituted force majeure (or grave irresistible force/violence) sufficient to exculpate petitioner from liability as a common carrier.
  3. Whether the trial court’s denial of the motion to dissolve the writ of preliminary attachment was properly rendered moot by the merits decision.

Applicable Law (including constitutional basis)

  • Constitution: The 1987 Philippine Constitution is to be applied as the governing constitution given the decision date (post-1990).
  • Civil Code provisions governing carriers and their duties cited and applied: Art. 1732 (definition of common carrier), Art. 1733 (duty of extraordinary diligence), Art. 1734 (enumerated exceptions absolving carriers), Art. 1735 (presumption of fault where not enumerated exceptions), and Art. 1745(6) (public policy limiting stipulations that would diminish common carrier’s liability for acts of thieves/robbers who do not act with grave or irresistible threat/violence).
  • Controlling jurisprudence cited in the record: De Guzman v. Court of Appeals (168 SCRA 612, 1988), Solivio v. Court of Appeals (182 SCRA 119, 1990), Schmid and Oberly, Inc. v. RJL Martinez Fishing Corp. (166 SCRA 493, 1988), Imperial Victory Shipping Agency v. NLRC (200 SCRA 178, 1991), Ayco v. Fernandez (195 SCRA 328, 1991).

Factual Findings Material to Decision

  • CIPTRADE subcontracted petitioner to transport 400 sacks of soya bean meal for a fixed rate. The goods were not delivered.
  • The driver (Maximo Sanglay) signed a cargo receipt acknowledging receipt of the 400 sacks. The truck helper, Juanito Morden, was an employee of petitioner. Control of the cargo was placed in petitioner’s care.
  • Petitioner asserted the arrangement was a lease of the truck (not carriage), alleged that the truck was hijacked on October 21, 1988, reported the hijacking, and that criminal complaints for robbery and carnapping were later filed against the accused. Petitioner submitted several affidavits describing the transaction as a lease and recounting the hijacking.

Legal Analysis — Existence of a Common Carrier

  • Definition and test: Article 1732 defines a common carrier as one engaged in the business of carrying goods for compensation, offering services to the public; the test focuses on whether carrying is the business held out to the public as the carrier’s occupation rather than the scale or regularity of transactions. De Guzman explains that Article 1732 does not distinguish between principal vs. ancillary business activity or between broad public offering and a limited clientele.
  • Judicial admission and evidentiary effect: Petitioner admitted in pleadings that she was in the trucking business and offered trucks to those who had cargo to move (A.M. Bascos Trucking). Such admissions are judicial admissions and are binding; they dispensed with proof of the contractual status as a carrier. The appellate court reasonably credited evidence that the driver signed a cargo receipt and that petitioner’s employees were entrusted with the cargo.
  • Lease label insufficient: Contracts are to be characterized by their substantive terms and acts, not merely by the parties’ labels. Petitioner’s affidavits referring to the transaction as a lease were held self-serving and insufficient to shift the nature of the contract. The petitioner bore the burden of proving the asserted lease relationship and failed to present convincing evidence beyond self-serving affidavits. Consequently, the courts below and this Court sustained the finding that petitioner acted as a common carrier.

Legal Analysis — Presumption of Negligence and Burden of Proof

  • Presumption under Art. 1735: For causes not enumerated in Art. 1734 (natural disasters, acts of public enemy, act/omission of shipper/owner, character/packing defects, act of competent public authority), there is a presumption that common carriers were at fault or negligent when goods are lost, destroyed or deteriorated. The carrier must rebut this presumption by proving the exercise of extraordinary diligence required by Art. 1733.
  • Application here: Hijacking is not among the enumerated exceptions in Art. 1734 and is governed by the general presumption in Art. 1735; jurisprudence (De Guzman) treats hijacking as falling outside the enumerated exceptions and requires the carrier to prove it exercised extraordinary diligence or that the loss resulted from robbery accompanied by grave or irresistible threat or force. Article 1745(6) prohibits clauses attempting to absolve carriers from liability for acts of thieves/robbers who do not act with grave or irresistible force.

Legal Analysis — Force Majeure / Hijacking Claim

  • Standard to exculpate carrier: To relieve a common carrier from liability for loss due to the intervening criminal act of third persons (robbers/hijackers), the carrier must prove either (a) it fell within one of the Art. 1734 enumerated exceptions, or (b) in the case of theft/robbery/hijacking, that the robbers acted with grave or irresistible threat, violence or force sufficient to place the carrier beyond blame (per Art. 1745(6) and related jurisprudence).
  • Evidence submitted and its insufficiency: Petitioner relied on several affidavits (her own, Jesus Bascos, and Juanito Morden’s “salaysay”) describing the hijacking. The trial and appellate courts found these affidavits lacked sufficient detail and probative force to overcome the presumption of negligence. Petitioner’s own affidavit was hearsay as to certain facts (derived from the helper’s account), Jesus Bascos’s affidavit did not describe how the hijacking occurred, a
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