NATIONAL POWER CORPORATION, PETITIONER, VS. HEIRS OF NOBLE CASIONAN, RESPONDENTS.

National Power Corporation versus Heirs of Noble Casionan

The Case

This is a petition for review on certiorari brought by the National Power Corporation against the Heirs of Noble Casionan, the parents of a nineteen-year-old pocket miner who was electrocuted when the tip of the bamboo pole he was carrying touched one of the company's sagging high tension transmission lines. The company does not deny that the young man died of electrocution; what it contests is the award of damages, arguing that the victim was himself negligent and that the amounts granted for unearned income, moral damages, and exemplary damages lacked factual and legal basis. The case matters because it is the Court's clean statement of when contributory negligence will mitigate a quasi-delictual liability, and of how loss of earning capacity is computed.

Procedural History

The heirs of Noble Casionan filed a claim for damages against the National Power Corporation before the Regional Trial Court in Benguet. On February 17, 1998, the trial court rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, declaring the company guilty of negligence and ordering it to pay indemnity for death, moral damages, exemplary damages, actual damages for burial and wake expenses, loss of unearned income, and attorney's fees, while dismissing the company's counterclaim.

Disagreeing, the company elevated the case to the Court of Appeals. On June 30, 2004, the Court of Appeals affirmed the appealed decision with modification, reducing the moral damages and deleting the award of attorney's fees because the reason for that award was not expressly stated in the body of the decision.

The company then came to the Supreme Court by petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45, raising the twin issues of contributory negligence and the propriety of the damages awarded.

Facts

Noble Casionan, nineteen years old at the time of the incident and originally from Cervantes, Ilocos Sur, worked as a pocket miner in Dalicno, Ampucao, Itogon, Benguet. A trail leading to Sangilo, Itogon existed in Dalicno and was regularly used by members of the community. Sometime in the 1970's, the National Power Corporation installed high tension electrical transmission lines of sixty-nine kilovolts traversing that trail. Eventually some of the lines sagged and dangled, reducing their distance from the ground to only about eight to ten feet, well below the standard clearance of eighteen to twenty feet. As early as 1991, community leaders made verbal and written requests for safety measures, and in 1991 and 1993 elders wrote the company's area manager, reiterating the danger to small-scale miners especially during the wet season and relating an incident where one boy was nearly electrocuted. In a letter dated March 1, 1995, the area manager informed the mayor that the company had installed nine additional poles and identified a possible rerouting scheme estimated at 1.7 million pesos.

On June 27, 1995, Noble and his co-worker Melchor Jimenez cut two bamboo poles for their pocket mining, one eighteen to nineteen feet long and the other fourteen feet long. Each man carried one pole horizontally on his shoulder; Noble carried the shorter pole and walked ahead as both passed through the trail underneath the transmission lines. As Noble went uphill and turned left on a curve, the tip of his bamboo pole touched one of the dangling wires. Melchor heard a buzzing sound, saw Noble fall to the ground, and found him already dead when he rushed to shake him. A post-mortem examination determined the cause of death to be cardiac arrest, secondary to ventricular fibulation, secondary to electrocution, and noted a small burned area on the victim's middle right finger.

Police investigators confirmed that portions of the wires hung only about eight to ten feet above the ground, that residents, school children, and pocket miners had to pass directly underneath them, that the trail was the only viable way since the other side was a precipice, and that no danger warning signs were installed. Only after learning of the electrocution did the company repair the sagging lines and put up warning signs. At trial, the company denied negligence, averred that warning signs had been stolen by children, and argued that if Noble did die by electrocution it was due to his own negligence.

Issues

• Whether or not the award for damages should be deleted in view of the alleged contributory negligence of the victim.
• Whether or not the awards for unearned income, exemplary damages, and moral damages should be deleted for lack of factual and legal bases.

Applicable Provisions

Article 2179 of the Civil Code provides:

When the plaintiff's own negligence was the immediate and proximate cause of his injury, he cannot recover damages. But if his negligence was only contributory, the immediate and proximate cause of the injury being the defendant's lack of due care, the plaintiff may recover damages, but the courts shall mitigate the damages to be awarded.

This is the provision the Court applies in deciding whether the company's liability should be reduced because of the victim's conduct, and it is the textual basis for the rule that only contributory negligence, not the victim's sole negligence, mitigates an award.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the finding of negligence on the part of the company, affirmed by the Court of Appeals, is a question of fact that cannot be passed upon in a petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45, and that the corollary finding of lack of contributory negligence on the part of the victim is likewise a factual issue deemed conclusive absent any compelling reason to rule otherwise. Even walking the extra mile, the Court said the finding of liability must stay. The sagging high tension wires were an accident waiting to happen; had the lines been properly maintained, the bamboo pole would not have touched them and the victim would not have been electrocuted. The company cannot excuse its failure to maintain the wires by attributing negligence to the victim.

The Court defined negligence as the failure to observe, for the protection of the interest of another person, that degree of care, precaution, and vigilance which the circumstances justly demand, whereby such other person suffers injury. Contributory negligence, on the other hand, is conduct on the part of the injured party, contributing as a legal cause to the harm he has suffered, which falls below the standard which he is required to conform for his own protection. There is contributory negligence when the party's act showed lack of ordinary care and foresight that such act could cause him harm or put his life in danger. The Court found none here: the trail was regularly used by the community, there were no warning signs of the impending danger, and the trail was the only viable way, so the victim should not be faulted for simply doing what was ordinary routine to other workers in the area.

On the company's further claim that the victim was engaged in prohibited pocket mining, the Court held that the violation of a statute is not sufficient to hold that the violation was the proximate cause of the injury unless the very injury that happened was precisely what was intended to be prevented by the statute. That the pocket miners were unlicensed was no justification for leaving the transmission lines dangling. The victim was therefore not guilty of contributory negligence, and the company was not entitled to a mitigation of its liability.

On the second issue, the Court sustained the award of unearned income. It was established that the victim was earning three thousand pesos a month. Life expectancy is computed by applying the formula of two-thirds multiplied by eighty minus the age at death, adopted from the American Expectancy Table of Mortality; the second factor is computed by multiplying life expectancy by the net earnings of the deceased, ordinarily fifty percent of gross earnings. The Court quoted with approval the trial court's computation, which arrived at seven hundred twenty thousand pesos as the net earnings that would have gone to the support of the heirs.

Exemplary damages were also sustained. In quasi delicts, exemplary damages are awarded where the offender was guilty of gross negligence, defined as the want or absence of even slight care or diligence as to amount to a reckless disregard of the safety of person or property. The company demonstrated its disregard for the safety of the community when it failed to address the sagging wires despite numerous previous requests and warnings, exerting efforts to rectify the danger only after a death had occurred.

As to moral damages, the Court sustained the reduction made by the Court of Appeals, holding that moral damages are designed to compensate the claimant for actual injury suffered and not to impose a penalty on the wrongdoer, and that trial courts should guard against exorbitant awards. As to attorney's fees, the Court held that the reason for the award must be discussed in the text of the court's decision and not only in the dispositive portion; since the trial court discussed no reason except in the fallo, the Court of Appeals correctly disallowed it.

Doctrine

First, only contributory negligence on the part of the injured party will mitigate the damages awardable under Article 2179 of the Civil Code; where the defendant's lack of due care is the immediate and proximate cause of the injury, the plaintiff may recover, but the courts shall mitigate the damages to be awarded. Second, there is contributory negligence only when the injured party's act shows a lack of ordinary care and foresight that the act could cause him harm or put his life in danger; the mere presence of the victim at the scene, or his engagement in an unlicensed activity, does not establish it. Third, the violation of a statute or ordinance is not sufficient to establish contributory negligence unless the very injury that happened was precisely what the statute was intended to prevent, or unless a causal connection is shown between the violation and the injury. Fourth, in quasi delicts, exemplary damages may be awarded where the offender is guilty of gross negligence, meaning the want or absence of even slight care as to amount to a reckless disregard of the safety of person or property. Fifth, loss of earning capacity is computed by the formula of two-thirds multiplied by eighty minus the age at the time of death, multiplied by the gross annual income less reasonable and necessary living expenses, the net earning ordinarily being fifty percent of gross earnings. Sixth, moral damages compensate actual injury and are not a penalty on the wrongdoer, and the reason for an award of attorney's fees must be stated in the text of the decision, not merely in the dispositive portion.

Disposition

The petition was denied and the appealed decision of the Court of Appeals was affirmed, leaving the company liable for the damages as modified.

Remember This

Memorize this line: contributory negligence mitigates civil liability under Article 2179 of the Civil Code, but it must be shown that the injured party's own act, in disregard of warnings or signs of impending danger, contributed as a legal cause to his injury. Examiners use this case to test the distinction between contributory negligence and the victim's sole negligence, and to test the formula for loss of earning capacity in quasi-delicts.