G.R. No. 11202. February 04, 1918
RAMON SOTELO MATTI, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. THE BULLETIN PUBLISHING COMPANY, DEFENDANT AND APPELLEE.
STREET, J.:
Manila Daily Bulletin, a periodical published in English in this city,
an account of some sensational disclosures revealed in three affidavits filed in
connection with a motion made by the defendant in the case of Maria Mortera de
Eceiza and husband vs. the West of Scotland Insurance Company (Ltd.),
in the Court of First Instance of the city of Manila. In that case the
plaintiffs had, about five months prior to the date of the publication in
question, recovered a judgment upon two insurance policies upon a house situated
in this city and its contents. This judgment had been duly satisfied by the
insurance company.
By the motion filed by the defendant company upon the date mentioned, the
company sought to open said judgment and recover the amount paid by it to the
insured. The ground of the motion was that the fire which occasioned the loss
was of incendiary origin, as the company had lately discovered, and was the
result of a conspiracy in which the plaintiffs had figured as instigators. The
three affidavits were made by three persons who alleged that they were the
instruments of the plaintiffs in setting said fire.
The account which appeared in the Bulletin relative to this matter
was given considerable prominence in an article beginning upon the first page of
the periodical. In thi3 article there appeared one paragraph which gave occasion
to the present action for’ libel. This paragraph was of the following tenor:
“Implicated in the charges of the conspiracy and fraud is the name of the
attorney for the plaintiffs who made affidavit as to the burning of the house
and against whom criminal proceedings will be brought as well as against the
original owners.”
The present plaintiff, Ramon Sotelo Matti, an attorney of the Manila Bar, had
represented the plaintiffs in the action against the insurance company and
afterwards represented them upon the hearing of the motion to which reference
has been made. The paragraph in question was false in all particulars so far as
concerns Sotelo; and he instituted this civil action in the Court of First
Instance of the city of Manila to recover damages for the libelous publication.
The damages claimed were these: (1) P70,000, for injury to feelings and
reputation; (2) P5,000, for pecuniary loss incident to his professional
practice; and (3) P25,000, as punitive or exemplary damages.
At the trial the Court of First Instance disallowed damages altogether under
the second and third heads alleged in the complaint and gave judgment in favor
of the plaintiff for P200 under the first head. The plaintiff appealed from this
judgment on the ground that the damages assessed under the first cause of action
were inadequate, and that the court had erred in disallowing damages upon the
second and third grounds of action.
The offensive paragraph is of course libelous on its face, and actionable
per se, since it imputes to the person libelled complicity in a crime;
and the Court of First Instance so held. It is also in our opinion sufficiently
connected with the plaintiff, though his name is not mentioned, to make him the
object of the injurious imputations conveyed therein. A person acquainted with
the history of the litigation in the case of Eceiza vs. The West of
Scotland Insurance Co.[1] must have
inferred from the paragraph in question that Sotelo was the person referred to.
It is true that at the time when the motion was made the litigation appeared
upon the records of the courts as having been terminated; and from this the
conclusion might have been drawn that Sotelo no longer represented the
plaintiffs in that case. But his name was of record as the attorney of the
plaintiffs while the cause had been in course of litigation, and as the whole
sensational disclosure related to occurrences connected with that litigation, no
reasonable conclusion could be drawn other than that this plaintiff was the
attorney intended by the writer of that paragraph.
The answer to the material allegations of the complaint consisted of a
general denial, and the testimony adduced by the defense shows that the
offensive paragraph was written and published by mistake and without design to
injure the plaintiff. It also appears that as soon as the defendant’s manager
was apprised of the fact that a libel suit had been filed against the Daily
Bulletin by the plaintiff herein, he published a short article in the paper
giving information about the institution of said action; and in connection
therewith, referring to the alleged libelous paragraph, said:
“The Bulletin does not know who the attorney for the plaintiff was.
No names are mentioned in the article to give any clue as to who the attorney
is. The Bulletin received its information in good faith from reliable
sources and there was no intention to reflect upon the integrity of any
individual except some of those who have since been arrested for implication in
the case.”
It is suggested that this should be considered a retraction; but it is
lacking in candor and generosity, and in our opinion evinces but little of the
desire to repair a wrong which should inspire a retraction. The defense in this
case evidently hoped to avoid liability on the ground that the libelous
imputation was not directed towards the plaintiff; and this hope may have
unfortunately restrained the editor from making the direct admission of mistake
which was appropriate. When a periodical gives currency, whether innocently or
otherwise, to a false and defamatory statement concerning any person, it is
under both a legal and moral duty to check the propagation of such statement as
soon as practicable by publishing a retraction; and in order to have the desired
effect the retraction should contain an admission of the incorrectness of the
libelous publication and evince a desire to repair the wrong occasioned thereby.
The statement here made that “the Bulletin does not know who the
attorney for the plaintiff was” is evidently disingenuous evasion; and, in view
of this circumstance the suggestion that there was no intention to reflect upon
the plaintiff’s integrity loses its force.
Among the circumstances favorable to the defendant is the fact that plaintiff
was not mentioned by name in the offensive paragraph. This had the result of
limiting the injurious primary effects of the publication to the comparatively
narrow circle of those readers who knew that Sotelo had served as attorney for
the plaintiffs in the insurance case. As Sotelo is not a member of the English
speaking community, information as to his connection with that case was
naturally possessed by comparatively few readers of the Daily
Bulletin.
In assessing the damages for injury to the feelings and reputation of the
plaintiff in this case it is proper to consider that he is an attorney in good
standing, and he is shown by the evidence to be an esteemed member of the
community. The false imputation of complicity in the crime of arson is enough
seriously to impair the standing of any person, and if not speedily corrected
its effects are likely to be marked and enduring. In view of all the
circumstances we are constrained to believe that the Court of First Instance
placed too moderate an estimate upon the amount of general damages assessable by
way of reparation for injury to the plaintiff’s feelings and reputation; and
reluctant as we are to interfere with the estimate made by the lower court upon
such a matter, we have nevertheless decided to increase these damages from P200
to P500.
In the opinion of the court below, reference is made to Jimenez vs.
Reyes (27 Phil. Rep., 52), and the principles therein enunciated appear in the
main to have been correctly applied. We there assessed general damages in favor
of the plaintiff in the sum of P300, where the Court of First Instance had
allowed none at all. In that case the original publication was libelous per
se, and was evidently intended to expose the injured party to contempt and
ridicule; while the second publication, a pretended disavowal, was in effect a
mere repetition of the first; and both were manifestly inspired by the malicious
design to injure the party libelled. It should be noted that the factor of
malice in fact is generally more pertinent in the assessment of punitive damages
than in the assessment of the actual damages for injury to the feelings and
reputation of the party libelled. In Jimenez vs. Reyes,
(supra) punitive or exemplary damages were awarded in the sum of P200,
from which it may be inferred that the evil design of the defendant in that case
was chiefly considered by the court in assessing these damages. It is also
worthy of note that the libelous publication in that case had its explanation in
differences of religious opinion, and while the publication was extremely
rancorous, there was no charge of complicity in the commission of any public
offense. The libelous imputation in the case now before us is evidently of a
much more harmful character than that with which the court was concerned in
Jimenez vs. Reyes. In view of these considerations and of the further
circumstance that the retraction in the case before us is unsatisfactory, we
think that we are fully justified in increasing the damages allowed by the lower
court to the extent already stated.
Testimony was introduced by the plaintiff tending to show that the emoluments
received from his professional practice suffered a decline in the year following
the publication of the libel; and the depositions of two witnesses were read in
which they testified that after reading the libel they had refrained from
entrusting to the plaintiff certain legal business which they had contemplated
placing in his hands. The trial judge, upon considering this testimony, came to
the conclusion that the decline in the receipts from plaintiff’s professional
income was probably due either to general conditions affecting business
adversely or to the unaccountable fluctuations which, as experience teaches, are
sometimes noted in the practice of individual lawyers. The court accordingly
held that the diminution in the plaintiff’s yearly income, of which he
complained, was not due to the effects of the libelous publication. We think the
court was correct in so holding, as the evidence was too indefinite to support
an award of pecuniary damages. We are also of the opinion that the court was
right in refusing to take account of the loss of prospective business which two
witnesses testified they might have placed in the plaintiff’s hands but for the
unfavorable effects of the libel. It did not appear that the business to which
they referred had ever materialized or had been committed into the hands of any
other lawyer, and we think that if the thought of placing that business with any
lawyer was ever seriously entertained at all by these witnesses, the idea was
transient and illusory.
The case was not one which would have justified the assessment of punitive,
vindictive, or exemplary damages. No malice in point of fact, or evil motive, on
the part of the offending paper, or its employees, towards the plaintiff was
proved or existed; and neither the author of the article nor the manager of the
paper knew the plaintiff until the day of the trial of the case. The manager of
the paper testified that from the information which he had received the
plaintiff had a very good reputation, and that he regretted that such a thing
had happened. Obviously it was a case of unintentional mistake on the part of
the reporter.
From what has been said it follows that the judgment of the court below
should be modified by substituting the sum of P500 for so much thereof as awards
to the plaintiff the sum of P200; and as so modified the judgment is affirmed
without costs. So ordered.
Arellano, C. J., Torres, Johnson, Carson, Aravllo, Malcolm, and
Avanceña, JJ., concur.
[1] Mortera and Eceiza vs.
West of Scotland Insurance Office, 36 Phil. Rep., 994.