VICTORINO CUSI AND PILAR POBRE, PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES, VS. PHILIPPINE NATIONAL RAILWAYS, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.

Direct appeal from the decision of the Court of First Instance of
Rizal ordering defendant-appellant to indemnify the
plaintiffs-appellees in the total amount of Two
Hundred Thirty-Nine Thousand and Six Hundred Forty-Eight Pesos, and Seventy-Two
Centavos (P239,648.72) for injuries received in a collision caused by the gross
negligence of defendant-appellant, plus Ten Thousand Pesos (P10,000.00) as
attorney’s fees and expenses of litigation.

Upon the amended and supplemental complaints for damages filed by
plaintiffs-appellees, the spouses Victorino
Cusi and Pilar Pobre before the Court of First Instance of Rizal against the Manila Railroad Company, now the
Philippine National Railways and duly answered by the latter and after due
hearing, the following facts appear as undisputed:  On the night of October 5, 1963, plaintiffs-appellees attended a birthday party inside the United
Housing Subdivision in Parañaque, Rizal.  After the party which broke up at about 11 o’clock that evening, the plaintiffs-appellees proceeded home in their Vauxhall car with Victorino Cusi at the wheel.  Upon reaching the railroad tracks, finding
that the level crossing bar was raised and seeing that there was no flashing
red light, and hearing no whistle from any coming train, Cusi
merely slackened his speed and
proceeded to cross the tracks.  At the
same time, a train bound for Lucena traversed the
crossing, resulting in a collision between the two.  The impact threw the plaintiffs-appellees out of their car which was smashed.  One Benjamin Franco, who came from the same
party and was driving a vehicle right behind them, rushed to their aid and
brought them to San Juan de Dios Hospital for emergency treatment.  Later, the plaintiffs-appellees
were transferred to the Philippine General Hospital.  A week later, Mrs. Cusi
transferred to the Manila Doctors
Hospital where Dr. Manuel Rivera,
Head of the Orthopedic and Fracture Service of the Philippine General Hospital,
performed on her a second ope­ration and continued to treat her until her
discharge from the hospital on November
2, 1963.  Thereafter, Dr. Rivera
treated her as an out-patient until the end of February, 1964 although by that
time the fractured bones had not yet healed. 
Mrs. Cusi was also operated on by Dr. Franciso Aguilar, Director of the National
Orthopedic Hospital,
in May, 1964 and in August, 1965, after another operation in her upper body
from the chest to the abdomen, she was placed in cast for some three (3) months
and her right arm immobilized by reason of the cast.

As enumerated in the Medical Certificate (Exh.
“J”), Mrs. Cusi suffered the following:

“(1) Fracture open middle third humerus,
right

 (2) Fracture mandible right paramedian

 (3) Fracture fibula left
Distal

 (4) Concussion, cerebral.

 (5) Abrasions, multiple
(face, head, lumbo-sacral and extremities)

 (6) Lacerations (2) right
temporal

 (7) Contusions with hematoma left forehead and parieto
occipital, right.”

For these injuries, she underwent a total
of four surgical operations in a period of two years.  As a result of the fracture on her right arm,
there was a shortening of about 1 cm. of that arm.  She lost the flexibility of her wrist, elbow
and shoulder.  Up to the time she took
the witness stand in August, 1966, she still had an intermedullary
nail in the bone of her right arm. 
Likewise, Victorino Cusi
suffered brain injuries which affected his speech, memory, sense of hearing and
neck movement.  For a long period, he
also felt pain all over his body.

Victorino Cusi
claimed that prior to the accident he was a successful businessman – the
Special Assistant to the Dolor Lopez Enterprises, the managing partner of Cusi and Rivera Partnership, the manager of his ricemill, and with substantial investments in other
business enterprises.  As a result of his
injuries, he was unable to properly attend to his various business undertakings.  On the other hand, his wife, Pilar, was a skilled music and piano teacher.  After the accident, she lost the dexterity of
her fingers forcing her to quit her pro­fession.  She also bore ugly scars on several parts of
her body, and she suffered anxiety of a possible miscarriage being then five
(5) months pregnant at the time of the accident.

The defense is centered on the proposition that the gross
negligence of Victorino Cusi
was the proximate cause of the collision; that had he made a full stop before
traversing the crossing as required by section 56(a) of Act 3992 (Motor Vehicle Law), he could have seen and heard the
approach of the train, and thus, there would have been no collision.

After a protracted trial, the lower court rendered the decision
now subject of the appeal. 
Defendant-appellant seeks the reversal of said decision; but should We
affirm the same, that the award be reduced to a reasonable amount.

As the action is predicated on negligence, the New Civil Code^[1]
making clear that “whoever by act or omission
causes damage to another, there being fault or negligence, is obliged to
pay for the damage done,” the crucial question posed in the petition at
bar is the existence of negligence on the part of defendant-appellant as found by the lower court.

1.  The question of
negligence being one of fact, the lower court’s finding of negligence on the
part of the defendant-appellant deserves serious consideration by the
Court.  It commands great respect and
weight, the reason being that the trial judge, having the advantage of hearing
the parties testify and of observing their demeanor on the witness stand, is
better situated to make conclusions of facts. 
Thus, it has been the standing practice of appellate courts to accord
lower court’s judgments the presumption of correctness.  And unless it can be shown that error or
errors, substantial in character, be shown in the conclusion arrived at, or
that there was abuse in judicial scrutiny, We are bound by their
judgments.  On this ground alone We can
rest the affirmance of the judgment appealed from.^[2]

2.  Nor is the result different
even if no such presumption were indulged in, that is, even if We were to resolve
whether or not there exist compelling reasons for an ultimate reversal.

The judicial pronouncement below that the gross negligence of
defendant-appellant was the proximate cause of the collision has been
thoroughly reviewed by this Court and We fully affirm the same.

Negligence has been defined by Judge Cooley in his work on Torts
(3d. ed.), sec. 1324^[3]
as “the failure to observe for the protection of the interests of another
person that degree of care, precaution, and vigilance which the circumstances
justly demand, whereby such other person suffers injury.” By such a test,
it can readily be seen that there is no hard and fast rule whereby such degree
of care and vigilance is measured; it is dependent upon the circumstances in
which a person finds himself so situated. 
All that the law requires is that it is always incumbent upon a person
to use that care and diligence expected of reasonable men under similar circumstances.

These are the circumstances attendant to the collision.  Undisputably, the
warning devices installed at the railroad crossing ware manually operated;
there were only 2 shifts of guards provided for the operation there­of – one,
the 7:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. shift, and the other, the 3:00 P.M. to 11:00 P.M.
shift.  On the night of the accident, the
train for Lucena was on an unscheduled trip after 11:00 P.M. During that precise hour, the
warning devices were not operating for no one attended to them.  Also, as observed by the lower court, the
locomotive driver did not blow his whistle, thus: “xxx he simply sped on
without taking an extra precaution of blowing his whistle from a distance of 50
to 10 meters from the crossing.  That the
train was running at full speed is attested to by the fact that notwithstanding
the application of the emergency brakes, the train did not stop until it
reached a distance of around 100 meters.”

These facts assessed together show the inadequacy, nay, the
absence, of precautions taken by the defendant-appellant to warn the travelling public of the impending danger.  It is clear to Us that as the signal devices
were wholly manually-operated, there was an urgent need for a flagman or guard
to man the crossing at all times.  As it
was, the crossing was left unattended to after eleven
o’clock every night and on the night of the accident.  We cannot in all reason justify or condone
the act of the defendant-appellant allowing the subject locomotive to travel
through the unattended crossing with inoperative signal devices, but without
sending any of its employees to operate said signal devices so as to warn oncoming motorists of the
approach of one of its locomotives.  It
is not surprising therefore that the inoperation of
the warning devices created a situation which was misunderstood by the riding
public to mean safe passage. 
Jurisprudence recognizes that if warning devices are installed in
railroad crossings, the travelling public has the
right to rely on such warning devices to put them on their guard and take the
necessary precautions before crossing the tracks.  A need, therefore, exists for the railroad
company to use reasonable care to keep such devices in good con­dition and in
working order, or to give notice that they are not operating, since if such a
signal is misunderstood it is a menace.^[4]
Thus, it has been held that if a railroad company maintains a signalling device at a crossing to give warning of the
approach of a train, the failure of the device to operate is generally held to
be evidence of negligence, which maybe considered with all the circumstances of
the case in determining whether the railroad company was negligent as a matter
of fact.^[5]

The set of circumstances surrounding the collision subject of
this case is very much similar to that of Lilius
v. Manila Railroad Company, 59 Phil. 758 (1934), where this Court upheld
the lower court’s finding of negligence on the part of defendant locomotive company
upon the following facts –

“x x x on
the part of the defendant company, for not having had on that occa­sion any
semaphore at the crossing at Dayap, to serve as a
warning to passersby of its existence in order that they might take the necessary
precautions before crossing the railroad; and, on the part of its employees –
the flagman and switchman, for not having remained at his post at the crossing
in question to warn passersby of the approaching train; the station master, for
failure to send the said flagman and switchman to his post on time; and the
engineer, for not having taken the necessary precautions to avoid an accident,
in view of the absence of said flagman and switchman, by slacken­ing his speed
and continuously ringing the bell and blowing the whistle before arriving at
the crossing.”

Defendant-appellant rests its defense mainly on Section 56(a) of the Motor Vehicle Law.  Thus:

“Section 56(a) – Traversing through streets and railroad
crossing, etc.- All vehicles moving on the public highways shall be brought to
a full stop before traversing any ‘through street’ or rail­road crossing.  Whenever any such ‘through street’ or
crossing is so designated and signposted, it shall be unlawful for the driver
of any vehicle to fail to stop within twenty meters but not less than two and
one-half meters from such ‘through street’ or railroad crossing.”

The defense presupposes that the failure
of plaintiffs-appellees to stop before proceeding to
traverse the crossing constitutes contributory negligence, thereby precluding
them from recovering indemnity for their injuries and damages.

The candor of defendant-appellant in interposing such a defense
is doubtful.  As seemingly observed by
the lower court, the defense, through inadvertence or deliberateness, did not
pursue further the excepting clause of the same section, thus to go on:

“Provided, however, that the driver of
a passenger automobile or motorcycle may, instead of coming to a full stop, slow down to not more than ten kilometers per hour whenever it
is apparent that no hazard exists.”

After a thorough perusal of the facts attendant to the case, this
Court is in full accord with the lower court. 
Plaintiff-appellee Victorino
Cusi had exercised all the necessary precautions
required of him as to avoid injury to himself and to others.  We find no need for him to have made a full
stop; relying on his faculties of sight and hearing, Victorino
Cusi had no reason to anticipate the impending
danger.  The record shows that the
spouses Cusi previously knew of the existence of the
railroad crossing, having stopped at the guardhouse to ask for directions before proceeding to the party.  At the crossing, they found the level bar
raised, no warning lights flashing nor warning bells ringing, nor whistle from
an oncoming train.  They safely traversed
the crossing.  On their return home, the
situation at the crossing did not in the least change, except for the absence
of the guard or flagman.  Hence, on the
same impression that the crossing was safe for passage as before, plaintiff-appellee Victorino Cusi merely slackened
his speed and proceeded to cross the tracks, driving at the proper rate of
speed for going over railroad crossings. 
Had defendant-appellant been successful in establishing that its locomotive
driver blew his whistle to warn motorists of his approach to compensate for the
absence of the warning signals, and that Victorino Cusi, instead of stopping or slackening his speed,
proceeded with reckless speed and regardless of possible or threatened danger,
then We would have been put in doubt as to the degree of prudence exercised by
him and would have, in all probability, declared him negligent,^[6] But as the contrary was established, We
remain convinced that Victorino Cusi
had not, through his own negligence, contributed to the accident so as to deny
him damages from the defendant-appellant.

The only question that
now remains to be resolved is the reasonableness of the amount awarded as
damages to the plaintiffs-appellees.

The following actual expenses
and losses are fully substantiated:

(a)   
Hospital bills of Mrs. Cusi
from October, 1963 to May, 1964
in the amount of Thirteen Thousand Five Hundred Fifty Pesos and Five Centavos
(P13,550.05);

(b)   
Another hospital bill of Mrs. Cusi in 1965 in the amount of Three Thousand and One Pesos and Ninety Centavos (P3,001.90);

(c)    Doctor’s
fees for two surgical operations performed on Mrs. Cusi
by one Dr. Manuel Rivera in the amount of One Thousand and Five Hundred Pesos
(P1,500.00);

(d)   
Loss of Victorino’s
wrist watch valued at Two Hundred and Fifty Pesos (P250.00);

(e)    Loss
of Pilar’s half of her pair of diamond earrings
(1-1/2 carrats) valued at Two Thousand Seven Hundred
and Fifty Pesos (P2,750.00);

(f)      Repair of the damaged Vauxhall car in the
amount of Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Ninety Four Pesos and Seventy-Seven
Centavos (p2,894.77).

The
total award of actual damages in the amount of Twenty Three Thousand Nine
Hundred Forty-Six Pesos and Seventy-Two Centavos (P23,946.72) is, therefore,
correct.

The lower court awarded
Twenty-One Thousand Six Hundred Pesos (P21,600.00) to Mrs. Cusi
for loss of income for the three years that she was under constant medical
treatment, and Fourteen Thousand Pesos (P14,000.00) for impairment of her
earning capacity; and Forty Thousand Pesos (P40,000.00) to Mr. Cusi for loss of income for the eight months that he was
disabled and impairment of his earning capacity.  We find the award reasonable.  The records show that Mrs. Cusi, previously a skilled piano teacher averaging a
monthly income of Six Hundred Pesos (P600.00), cannot now teach nor play the
piano since the accident which resulted in the loss of the dexterity of her
fingers; likewise, Mr. Cusi cannot now vigorously
attend to his businesses which previously netted him a monthly average income
of Five Thousand Pesos (P5,000.00).

As regards the award of Twenty Thousand Pesos (P20,000.00) for
profits which Victorino Cusi
failed to realize from a certain real estate transaction with the Dolor Lopez
Enterprises, We affirm the same as the defendant-appellant has failed to
present an iota of evidence to overcome plaintiffs-appellees‘
evidence credited by the lower court as to the certainty of the materialization
of the stated transaction.

The award of Seventy Thousand Pesos (P70,000.00) to Mrs. Cusi and Fifty Thousand Pesos (P50,000.00) to Victorino Cusi as moral damages
is not excessive.  In their own
respective fields of endeavor, both were successful.  Now they have to bear throughout their whole
lifetime the humiliation wrought by their physical deformities which no doubt
affected, and will continue to do so,
their social lives, their financial undertakings, and even their mental
attitudes.

Likewise, the amount of Ten Thousand Pesos (P10,000.00) given as
attorney’s fees, and expenses of litigation is not unreasonable.

The total amount of
damages awarded by the trial court should bear legal interest at 6% from the
rendition of the judgment, which was on March 26, 1968.

WHEREFORE, the judgment of the lower court is hereby AFFIRMED with the modification that
the total amount of damages shall bear legal interest at six per cent (6%) from
the rendition of the decision dated March
26, 1968.

SO ORDERED.

Teehankee, (Chairman), Makasiar, Fernandez, De Castro, and Melencio-Herrera, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Article 2176.

^[2]
Corliss v. Manila Railroad Co., 27 SCRA 674, citing Medina
v. Collector of Internal Revenue, L-15113, January 28, 1961, Jai-Alai Corporation v. Ching Kiat, L-7969, March
30, 1961, Arrieta v. National Rice & Corn Corp., L-15645,
January
31, 1964

^[3]
Quoted with approval in U.S.
v. Juanillo, 23 Phil. 212 (1912) and U.S.
v. Barias, 23 Phil. 434 (1912).

^[4]
See 74 C.J.S., 1347, 1348.

^[5]
44 Am. Jur. 766, pp. 8-9.

^[6]
See Yamada v. Manila Railroad Co., et al., 33 Phil. 8 (1915); Corliss v. Manila Railroad Co. (supra).