SPS. FERNANDO VERGARA AND HERMINIA VERGARA, PETITIONERS, VS. ERLINDA TORRECAMPO SONKIN, RESPONDENT.

Vergara versus Sonkin

The Case

This is a petition for review on certiorari brought by spouses Fernando Vergara and Herminia Vergara against Erlinda Torrecampo Sonkin. The Vergaras and the Sonkins are adjoining landowners in Norzagaray, Bulacan, and the dispute arises from water that seeped from the higher Vergara property into the lower Sonkin house after the Vergaras filled their lot with gravel, earth, and soil. The case matters because it is the Supreme Court's clean statement on contributory negligence between neighboring landowners: the lower estate owes a legal easement of natural drainage, but the owner who builds against the property line in violation of the National Building Code must share the loss. It also teaches when moral damages and attorney's fees must be deleted.

Procedural History

The Sonkins filed a complaint for damages and injunction with prayer for a preliminary mandatory injunction and a temporary restraining order before the Regional Trial Court of Malolos City, Bulacan, Branch 19, against the Vergaras and other possessors of the Vergara property. In its decision of January 4, 2007, the trial court held the Vergaras civilly liable. It ordered them to scrape the filling materials from the perimeter wall and erect a retaining wall under the National Building Code, to install an adequate drainage system, and to pay 300,000 pesos as actual damages, 50,000 pesos as moral damages, 50,000 pesos as exemplary damages, 100,000 pesos as attorney's fees, and costs. The Vergaras appealed the entire decision to the Court of Appeals, while the Sonkins filed only a partial appeal on the amounts of damages.

In its decision of February 24, 2010, the Court of Appeals reversed and set aside the trial court's decision. It ordered the Vergaras to install an adequate drainage system and to pay 50,000 pesos as moral damages and 100,000 pesos as attorney's fees. It set aside the order to remove the landfill and build a retaining wall, deleted the actual and exemplary damages, and dismissed the Sonkins' partial appeal. The Court of Appeals found the Sonkins guilty of contributory negligence for building their house directly abutting the perimeter wall in violation of the two-meter setback rule. Only the Vergaras moved for reconsideration, which was denied in a resolution of September 2, 2010. The Vergaras then filed this petition for review on certiorari, impleading only Erlinda Torrecampo Sonkin as respondent. The records show no further appeal by the Sonkins.

Facts

The Vergaras and the Sonkins own adjoining lots in Poblacion, Norzagaray, Bulacan. Because of the terrain, the Sonkin property sits slightly lower than the Vergara property. When the Sonkins bought their lot in 1999, they raised the height of the partition wall and built their house, attaching it to that wall so that a portion of the wall became part of the master's bedroom and bathroom.

In 2001, the Vergaras levelled the uneven portion of their lot by filling it with gravel, earth, and soil. The Vergara property then stood higher than the Sonkin property by about a third of a meter. Water from the Vergara side began leaking through the partition wall into the Sonkins' bedroom, causing cracks and damaging the paint and the wooden parquet floor. The Sonkins repeatedly demanded that the Vergaras build a retaining wall to contain the landfill, but the Vergaras did not act.

At trial, Engineer Ma. Victoria Mendoza testified that because the Vergaras caused the landfill, they were duty bound to provide a retaining wall and safety requirements, and that they failed to provide a sewerage line to divert the water. The Provincial Engineer of Bulacan, Romeo S. Castro, appointed by the trial court as commissioner, likewise found that the filling materials had affected the Sonkin house. The Vergaras answered that the Sonkins' act of raising the partition wall made it susceptible to breakage, and that they had left a one-meter distance from the wall when they filled their lot.

Issues

• Whether or not the Court of Appeals erred in upholding the award of moral damages and attorney's fees in favor of the Sonkins.
• Whether or not the Court should have ordered the demolition of the portion of the Sonkins' house that adjoins the partition wall.

Applicable Provisions

Article 2179 of the Civil Code governs the effect of the injured party's own negligence:

Article 2179. 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 that requires the Sonkins to bear part of their own loss and that justifies deleting the moral damages and attorney's fees.

Article 637 of the Civil Code establishes the legal easement of natural drainage:

Article 637. Lower estates are obliged to receive the waters which naturally and without the intervention of man descend from the higher estates, as well as the stones or earth which they carry with them. The owner of the lower estate cannot construct works which will impede this easement; neither can the owner of the higher estate make works which will increase the burden.

This provision made the Sonkin property legally obliged to receive water from the higher Vergara property, so the Sonkins should have adjusted their own construction instead of building against the wall.

Section 708, paragraph (a) of the National Building Code sets the setback rule for dwellings:

Section 708. Minimum Requirements for Group A Dwellings. (a) Dwelling Location and Lot Occupancy. The dwelling shall occupy not more than ninety percent of a corner lot and eighty percent of an inside lot, and subject to the provisions on Easement on Light and View of the Civil Code of the Philippines, shall be at least 2 meters from the property line.

The Sonkins violated this two-meter setback rule, which is the basis for finding them contributorily negligent and for ordering the removal of the offending portion of their house.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the petition is meritorious and deleted both the moral damages and the attorney's fees. Contributory negligence 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 to which he is required to conform for his own protection. The Sonkin property is undisputed to be lower in elevation, and under Article 637 it is legally obliged to receive the waters that flow from the Vergara property. The Sonkins should have been aware of this and made the necessary adjustments, but instead they disregarded the easement and built their house directly against the perimeter wall, violating Section 708, paragraph (a) of the National Building Code. Thus, while the proximate cause of the damage was the Vergaras' dumping of gravel and soil, the Sonkins were guilty of contributory negligence and must equally bear their own loss.

Because of that contributory negligence, the Court deleted the moral damages. Moral damages may be awarded when the defendant's wrongful act is the proximate cause of the plaintiff's suffering, but they are meant to ease grief and should reasonably approximate the extent of hurt caused and the gravity of the wrong done. The Court also deleted the attorney's fees. The general rule is that attorney's fees cannot be recovered as part of damages because no premium should be placed on the right to litigate, and the power to award them demands factual, legal, and equitable justification. Here, neither side was shown to have acted in bad faith, since both parties had valid contentions against each other.

On the second issue, the Court held that in view of the Sonkins' undisputed failure to observe the two-meter setback rule, and in light of the order directing the Vergaras to provide an adequate drainage system, it is proper, equitable, and necessary to order Erlinda, the sole respondent before the Court, to comply with the rule by removing the portion of her house directly abutting the partition wall. The underlying precept is that a plaintiff partly responsible for his own injury should not recover damages in full but must bear the consequences of his own negligence, and the defendant is liable only for the damages actually caused by his negligence.

Doctrine

First, under Article 2179 of the Civil Code, when the plaintiff's negligence is only contributory and the defendant's lack of due care is the immediate and proximate cause of the injury, the plaintiff may recover damages, but the courts shall mitigate the damages to be awarded. Second, under Article 637 of the Civil Code, the lower estate is obliged to receive waters that naturally and without the intervention of man descend from the higher estate, and the owner of the lower estate cannot construct works that impede this easement. Third, a landowner who builds a dwelling less than two meters from the property line violates Section 708, paragraph (a) of the National Building Code and is guilty of contributory negligence. Fourth, moral damages and attorney's fees are not awarded as a matter of course; they require justification, and the absence of bad faith on both sides negates them. Fifth, a plaintiff who is partly responsible for his own injury must bear the consequences of his own negligence, and the defendant is liable only for the damages actually caused by his negligence.

Disposition

The petition was granted. The Court of Appeals decision and resolution were affirmed with modifications: the awards of moral damages and attorney's fees were deleted, and respondent Erlinda Torrecampo Sonkin was directed to strictly comply with Section 708, paragraph (a) of the National Building Code by removing or demolishing the portion of her house that occupies the two-meter easement from the property line, with the rest of the Court of Appeals decision standing.

Remember This

Memorize the pairing: the lower estate must receive natural drainage under Article 637, but a plaintiff whose own negligence contributed to the harm recovers only mitigated damages under Article 2179, and moral damages and attorney's fees fall away absent bad faith. Examiners like to use this case in property and torts questions on the legal easement of natural drainage, the two-meter setback under the National Building Code, and contributory negligence as a ground for reducing or deleting damages.