SUN BROTHERS & COMPANY, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. MANILA PORT SERVICE AND MANILA RAILROAD COMPANY, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.

Appeal from a judgment of the Court of First Instance of Manila,
Hon. E. Soriano, presiding, ordering defendants to pay to plaintiff
jointly and severally the sum of P1,209.00, with legal interest from
the filing of the complaint until fully paid, plus damages in the
amount of P1,000.00 and the costs.

The facts are not in issue and the case was appealed directly to
this Court. The facts found by the court are briefly stated as follows:

“From the said evidence, this Court finds the
following: That plaintiff purchased ‘One (1) Case Hosiery Knitting
Machine Spare Parts’ from the Isiwaki Precision Works, Ltd., of Japan,
that the said article arrived an board the S/S LENEVERRETT of the
Everett Orient Line at the Port of Manila on August 22, 1956; that upon
being advised by the Prudential Bank & Trust Company of the
latter’s receipt of the shipping documents covering the article in
question, plaintiff paid the value thereof (Exhibits A and A-1); that
after said payment and the issuance to plaintiff of the corresponding
bank papers and shipping documents, plaintiff took steps to secure the
necessary tax exemption, certificate from the Department of Finance,
which certificate was issued sometime on September 7, 1956 (Exhibit B);
that the said certificate was necessary in order that the said article
may be released by the Bureau of Customs without the payment of taxes;
that plaintiff engaged the services of the City Brokerage Co., Inc.,
for the release of the said article from the Bureau of Customs and its
delivery to plaintiff; that the representative of the said City
Brokerage Co., Inc., together with the Custom’s examiner and another
representative of defendants, however, could not locate the article in
question after a search of about five days; that in this impasse, the
said broker, for and in behalf of plaintiff, filed with the Office of
defendant Manila Port Service a Provisional claim on September 15,
1956, for the loss of the said cargo (Exhibit, E for plaintiff and
Exhibit 1 for defendants); that, the said claim was followed by a
formal claim (Exhibits C and C—1), and that the said claim, was denied
by defendants on the ground that it was filed after the expiration of
the fifteen-day period provided in Paragraph 15 (Exhibit 2—A) of the
Management Contract (Exhibit 2) entered into by and between the Bureau
of Customs and defendants.”

The first question to be decided is whether or not defendants should
be absolved from the claim because it was presented after the lapse of
24 days from the arrival of the vessel. The second is that assuming
that defendants are liable, their liability can not exceed P500.00, in
accordance with the Management Contract entered into between them and
the Bureau of Customs. The court below found that the cargo in question
was received by the defendant Manila Port Service in the same quantity
and condition as when they were received by the carrying vessel, in
conformity with defendants’ answer. The court also found that plaintiff
is not bound by the Management Contract because it is not a signatory
thereto. So it rendered the judgment above quoted, against which this
appeal has been prosecuted.

The important question raised on this appeal is, Is the 15-day limit
for the presentation of a claim against the Manila Port Service, as
stipulated in the contract between it and the Bureau of Customs,
binding upon the plaintiff-appellee. We note that in a letter addressed
to the, attorney for the plaintiff by the Commissioner of Customs, the
latter made this explanation or interpretation of the disputed portion
of the Management Contract:

“It is the understanding of this Office that under
said Paragraph 15 of the contract, the Manila Port Service is relieved
in any event from any and all responsibility or liability for loss,
damage, misdelivery, and/or non-delivery of imported cargoes unless (a)
within one year from the discharge of the goods from the carrying
vessels no suit is instituted in the court of proper jurisdiction
and/or (b) within 15 days counted from the discharge of the
cargoes in the piers claims for such loss, etc. are filed with the
Manila Port Service.

“To our mind, these remedies given by
the contract to claimants for losses of cargoes are alternative, i. e.,
should claimant fail to file their claims within 15 days as
aforestated, they may bring suit against the Manila Port Service in the
court of proper jurisdiction within one year from the date of the
discharge of the cargoes and that failure on the part of claimants to
take advantage of the 15-day period remedy is not a “bar to resort to
the remedy of filing the claims in court so long as the prescribed time
of one year has not lapsed.” ((Exhibit “F-1”)

While the interpretation of the agreement above given by the
Commissioner of Customs is not binding upon the courts, same has
persuasive value.

The pertinent provision of the Management Contract which is applicable to the present case is the following:

“* * * : in any event the CONTRACTOR shall be
relieved and released of any and all responsibility or liability for
loss, damage, misdelivery, and/or non-delivery of goods, unless suit in
the court of proper jurisdiction is brought within a period of one (1)
year from the date of the discharge of the goods, or from the date when
the claim for the value of such goods have been rejected or denied by
the CONTRACTOR, provided that such claim shall have been filed with the
CONTRACTOR within fifteen (15) days from the date of discharge of the
last package from the carrying vessel.

The CONTRACTOR shall
be solely responsible for any and all injury or damage that may happen
to any person whomsoever, on account of the negligence or carelessness
of the CONTRACTOR, its agents or employees, in the performance of any
undertaking by it to be performed under the terms of this contract, and
shall save and hold the BUREAU at all times harmless therefrom and the
whole thereof.” (par. 15, Exh. “2”.)

The court below held that the Management Contract between the Manila
Port Service and the Commissioner of Customs is not binding on
plaintiff-appellee insofar as it provides that a claim for loss of
goods shipped and landed at Manila into the custody of the defendant
must be filed in 15 days. Reason for the ruling is that
plaintiff-appellee is not a party to said Management Contract. We
prefer to adopt the ruling in a modified form, thus, that under the
circumstances in the case at bar, the provision of the Management
Contract limiting liability of defendant to cases in which claim is
tiled within 15 days from the date of discharge of the last package
from the carrying vessel, can not be made to apply to
plaintiff-appellee in the case at bar to defeat the latter’s claim.

The Management Contract was entered into between the Commissioner of
Customs and the Manila Port Service principally to regulate the
arrastre service at the Port of Manila, namely, the business of
receiving cargo, handling it, caring for it and delivering same to
owners, for and on behalf of the Bureau of Customs. It does not pretend
to define and fix the responsibilities of consignees or importers of
cargo, except in the disputed clause; hence, it does not appear that
the public has been apprised of its provisions. It does not appear that
it has ever been given such publicity that owners or consignees of
cargo might know how to protect their rights; neither does it appear
that consignees of cargo are ever given notice or advised thereof,
especially that part limiting the duty of cargo owners to file claims
for lost cargo in 15 days, when cargo consigned to them is received. In
the case at bar, there is no showing that plaintiff- appellee was ever
apprised of such provision as the one now being sought to be enforced
to his prejudice. How can plaintiff-appellee be considered as bound by
its tems, unaware as he is thereof? As the lower court itself stated,
the provision in question appears furthermore to be unreasonable, as
the time given to file claims is too short in view of the numerous
regulations that the consignee has to comply with before he can demand
delivery of his cargo.

In defendants-appellants’ brief, claim is made that plaintiff had
been aware of the 15-day limitation period three years before the
transaction in question took place. This claim is based on the
testimony of an employee of the City Brokerage Company in whose hands
the taking away of the cargo from the pier was entrusted by plaintiff-
appellee. However, in the decision of the court below no mention of
this supposed knowledge on the part of the plaintiff-appellee of the
conditions of the Management Contract is made. The court must have
refused to believe that the plaintiff, through the City Brokerage
Company, had knowledge of the Management Contract and of the privilege
it grants the defendants about the 15-day limitation period. As, the
appeal was made to us directly, such that only questions of law can be
raised before us, such claim of fact, which is not found by the trial
court as a fact proved by the evidence, must be rejected. But in
addition to the above considerations, the demand for the cargo in the
case at bar was actually made some five or six days before the formal
provisional claim for the loss was filed, such that the customs
officers and the employees of the Manila Port Service had already
started searching for it. If the contract must be reasonably
interpreted, the filing of the claim should be considered made when
demand for the cargo was made, at which time defendants started looking
for the cargo, which was then missing. In fact, it was at that time
that the claim for the cargo was made. So it is not clear that the date
of the first demand for the cargo took place beyond the 15-day period.
So that under the circumstances obtaining in the case at bar, it does
not clearly appear that the claim for the cargo actually took place
beyond the 15-day period. We hold that defendants can not invoke the
limitation in question as a defense to the action of plaintiff-appellee.

In the memorandum filed by the defendants-appellants, in lieu of
oral argument, our attention is called to the case of Tomas Grocery vs.
Delgado Bros., 105 Phil., 549. That case has no pertinence to the case
at bar. In that case the consignee or importer withdrew the goods from.
the piers after signing a gate pass, in which a portion of the
Management Contract is quoted, which portion limits the liability of
the contractor to P500.00, unless the value of the goods have been
declared to be greater. The notice in the gate pass authorizing the
importer to bring the cargo out of the pier was held by us to bind the
owner of the goods, because he signed the pass and, therefore, knew its
provisions and is estopped from denying the conditions therein. There
was no gate pass in the case at bar as the goods were never withdrawn,
from the piers because they were lost while in the possession of
defendants-appellants. The consignee or importer can not, therefore, be
bound by the provision in the Management Contract limiting liability of
a contractor to P500.00.

For the foregoing considerations, we find that the judgment appealed
from should be, as it hereby is, affirmed, with costs against
appellants.

Paras, C. J., Bengzon, Montemayor, Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Endencia, Barrera, and Gutierrez David, JJ., concur.
Padilla, J., took no part.