ANTONIO GELUZ, PETITIONER, VS. THE HON. COURT OF APPEALS AND OSCAR LAZO, RESPONDENTS.

Geluz versus Court of Appeals and Lazo

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari brought by Antonio Geluz, a physician, against the Court of Appeals and Oscar Lazo, the husband of a woman who had voluntarily procured an abortion. The action began as a civil complaint for damages filed by Lazo against Geluz, seeking to recover for the death of an unborn foetus. The case matters because the Supreme Court draws a firm line between the juridical personality of a conceived child and the rights of its parents, and because it holds that the immorality or illegality of an act does not by itself justify an award of damages that has no factual or legal basis.

Procedural History

The litigation was commenced in the Court of First Instance of Manila by Oscar Lazo against Antonio Geluz. The trial court, convinced of the merits of the complaint upon the evidence adduced, rendered judgment in favor of Lazo and against Geluz, ordering Geluz to pay three thousand pesos as damages, seven hundred pesos as attorney's fees, and the costs of the suit. On appeal, the Court of Appeals, in a special division of five, sustained the award by a majority vote of three justices, against two who rendered a separate dissenting opinion. Upon application of Geluz, the Supreme Court granted certiorari, and the case reached the Supreme Court by that petition for certiorari.

Facts

Nita Villanueva came to know the defendant Antonio Geluz for the first time in 1948, through her aunt Paula Yambot. In 1950 she became pregnant by her present husband before they were legally married. Desiring to conceal her pregnancy from her parent, and acting on the advice of her aunt, she had herself aborted by the defendant. After her marriage with the plaintiff, she again became pregnant. As she was then employed in the Commission on Elections and her pregnancy proved to be inconvenient, she had herself aborted again by the defendant in October 1953.

Less than two years later, she again became pregnant. On February 21, 1955, accompanied by her sister Purificacion and the latter's daughter Lucida, she again repaired to the defendant's clinic on Carriedo and P. Gomez streets in Manila, where the three met the defendant and his wife. Nita was again aborted, of a two-month old foetus, in consideration of the sum of fifty pesos, Philippine currency. The plaintiff was at this time in the province of Cagayan, campaigning for his election to the provincial board; he did not know of, nor gave his consent to, the abortion. It is this third and last abortion that constitutes the plaintiff's basis in filing this action and the award of damages.

Issues

• Whether or not the husband of a woman who voluntarily procured her abortion may recover damages from the physician who caused the same under the initial paragraph of Article 2206 of the Civil Code of the Philippines.
• Whether or not an unborn foetus that is not endowed with personality may be the basis of an award of damages for its death.
• Whether or not the parents of the unborn child are entitled to collect damages, and if so, what kind of damages.

Applicable Provisions

The initial paragraph of Article 2206 of the Civil Code of the Philippines provides:

The defendant shall be liable for the death of a person, whether or not the deceased was obliged to give support, for the damages specified in Article 2206.

This provision was the basis of the trial court and the Court of Appeals in awarding three thousand pesos, but the Supreme Court holds that it does not cover the case of an unborn foetus that is not endowed with personality.

Article 40 of the Civil Code provides:

The conceived child shall be considered born for all purposes that are favorable to it, provided it be born later with the conditions specified in the following article.

This provision is invoked to support the provisional personality of a conceived child, but the Court holds that it expressly limits such provisional personality by the condition that the child should be subsequently born alive.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court holds that the award of damages under the initial paragraph of Article 2206 of the Civil Code is error, for the said article, in fixing a minimum award of three thousand pesos for the death of a person, does not cover the case of an unborn foetus that is not endowed with personality. Under the system of our Civil Code, the abortive creature does not attain the category of a natural person and is consequently a being not born to the life of the law, being incapable of having rights and obligations.

On the second issue, the Court holds that since an action for pecuniary damages on account of personal injury or death pertains primarily to the one injured, if no action for such damages could be instituted on behalf of the unborn child on account of the injuries it received, no such right of action could derivatively accrue to its parents or heirs. Even if a cause of action did accrue on behalf of the unborn child, the same was extinguished by its pre-natal death, since no transmission to anyone can take place from one that lacked juridical personality. The Court rejects the invocation of the provisional personality of a conceived child under Article 40 of the Civil Code, because that same article expressly limits such provisional personality by imposing the condition that the child should be subsequently born alive. In the present case, there is no dispute that the child was dead when separated from its mother's womb.

On the third issue, the Court holds that this is not to say that the parents are not entitled to collect any damages at all. But such damages must be those inflicted directly upon them, as distinguished from the injury or violation of the rights of the deceased, his right to life and physical integrity. Because the parents cannot expect either help, support or services from an unborn child, they would normally be limited to moral damages for the illegal arrest of the normal development of the spes hominis that was the foetus, that is, on account of distress and anguish attendant to its loss, and the disappointment of their parental expectations, as well as to exemplary damages, if the circumstances should warrant them. But in the case before us, both the trial court and the Court of Appeals have not found any basis for an award of moral damages, evidently because the appellee's indifference to the previous abortions of his wife, also caused by the appellant herein, clearly indicates that he was unconcerned with the frustration of his parental hopes and affections. The lower court expressly found, and the majority opinion of the Court of Appeals did not contradict it, that the appellee was aware of the second abortion, and the probabilities are that he was likewise aware of the first. Yet despite the suspicious repetition of the event, he appeared to have taken no steps to investigate or pinpoint the causes thereof, and secure the punishment of the responsible practitioner. Even after learning of the third abortion, the appellee does not seem to have taken interest in the administrative and criminal cases against the appellant. His only concern appears to have been directed at obtaining from the doctor a large money payment, since he sued for fifty thousand pesos damages and three thousand pesos attorney's fees, an indemnity claim that, under the circumstances of record, was clearly exaggerated.

The Court further notes that it is unquestionable that the appellant's act in provoking the abortion of appellee's wife, without medical necessity to warrant it, was a criminal and morally reprehensible act, that cannot be too severely condemned, and the consent of the woman or that of her husband does not excuse it. But the immorality or illegality of the act does not justify an award of damages that, under the circumstances on record, have no factual or legal basis.

Doctrine

An unborn foetus that is not endowed with personality cannot be the basis of an award of damages for its death under the initial paragraph of Article 2206 of the Civil Code, which fixes a minimum award of three thousand pesos for the death of a person. The provisional personality of a conceived child under Article 40 of the Civil Code is conditioned upon the child being subsequently born alive, and if the child is dead when separated from its mother's womb, no right of action accrues to its parents or heirs. The parents may recover only damages inflicted directly upon them, such as moral damages for the illegal arrest of the normal development of the spes hominis, that is, the hope of a human being, and exemplary damages if warranted, but not damages for the death of the unborn child. The immorality or illegality of an act does not justify an award of damages that has no factual or legal basis.

Disposition

The decision appealed from is reversed, and the complaint ordered dismissed, without costs. Let a copy of this decision be furnished the Department of Justice and the Board of Medical Examiners for their information and such investigation and action against Antonio Geluz as the facts may warrant.

Remember This

The single line worth memorizing is that an unborn foetus not endowed with personality cannot be the basis of an award of damages for its death, and the parents may recover only damages inflicted directly upon them. Examiners like to use this case to test the limits of Article 2206 of the Civil Code and the conditional personality of a conceived child under Article 40.