THE CITY OF MANILA, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. THE MANILA ELECTRIC COMPANY, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

The Manila Electric Company appeals from a judgment of the
Court of First Instance of Manila which condemns it to pay to the City of Manila
the sum of P1,788.27, with legal interest from September 10, 1927, and with
costs. While the case in its superficial aspects has appeared to be a simple
one, in its fundamentals the cause suggests important questions which possibly
the parties have not entirely grasped. By way of preliminary statement, it also
remains to be said that the numerous deliberations of the court on the case have
disclosed conflicting views which it is difficult to reconcile. The present
decision, therefore, will aim to present as best it may, the principles for
which a majority of the court stand, leaving it to the individual member to
dissent or otherwise explain his vote as to him seems fit and proper.

On June 8, 1925, in the City of Manila, there occurred a
collision between a street car of the Manila Electric Company, of which Sixto
Eustaquio was the motorman, and a truck belonging to the City of Manila. As a
result of the collision, the truck was damaged in the sum of P1,788.27. Sixto
Eustaquio was prosecuted for the crime of damage to property and slight injuries
through reckless imprudence. He was convicted by final judgment, and was
sentenced to pay a fine of P900, to indemnify the offended party, the City of
Manila, in the sum of P1,788.27, with subsidiary imprisonment in case of
insolvency, and to pay the costs. Not being able to collect the indemnity from
the accused, the City of Manila began an action to obtain payment from the
Manila Electric Company. An allegation of the complaint was “That the defendant
Manila Electric Company as master of the said agent and servant, Sixto
Eustaquio, by virtue of its relations with the latter and by express provisions
of law, is subsidiarily liable to the herein plaintiff for the sum of P1,788.27,
representing the damages caused by its agent and servant, the said Sixto
Eustaquio, in the discharge of his duties as motorman of the defendant’s
electric car.” The principal special defense set up in the answer to the
complaint was that the defendant had used all the diligence of a good father of
a family to prevent the damage suffered by plaintiff. At the trial, the parties
agreed on certain stipulations and admissions. The Assistant City Fiscal also
offered to present two witnesses, but the trial judge thought this unnecessary
and so took judicial cognizance of the decision and the record in the criminal
case which convicted the motorman, all against the protest of counsel for the
Manila Electric Company who noted his exceptions. The adverse judgment is now
contested on the ground that the trial court committed two errors, the first in
admitting in evidence the documents marked Exhibits A, B, C, D, E and F,
constituting the record in the case of the People of the Philippine Islands vs.
Sixto Eustaquio; and the second in not absolving the appellant from the
complaint.

I. The first error plainly has merit. As a general rule, a
record in a criminal action cannot be admitted in evidence in a civil action
except by way of inducement or to show a collateral fact. The very obvious
reason is that the parties and the issues in a criminal action and a civil
action are not the same. It is rudimentary that due process must be followed in
the trial of all causes. No man or entity may be condemned without a day in
court. (Almeida Chantangco and Lete vs. Abaroa [1910], 218 U. S., 476; 40 Phil.,
1056; Ed. A. Keller & Co. vs. Ellerman & Bucknall Steamship Co. [1918],
38 Phil., 514.)

It needs to be repeated that the Manila Electric Company
was not a party at the trial of the criminal case. There is extant in the record
no indication that the Manila Electric Company had any control over the
proceedings in the criminal case. All that the record in the criminal case
showed was that the “abogado defensor” (Attorney for the defense) was Antonio
Carrascoso. All that the record in the civil case showed was “Comparecieron: * *
* Por la entidad demandada The Manila Electric Co., los abogados seno res
Antonio T. Carrascoso, jr., y Guillermo Cabrera” (Appearances: * * * For the
defendant Manila Electric Company attorneys Antonip T. Carrascoso, jr., and
Guillermo Cabrera). By a coincidence, Attorney Carrascoso was both counsel for
the defendant in the criminal action and for the defendant in the civil action.
But there is lacking any proof showing that the Manila Electric Company supplied
the lawyer for the accused in the criminal action and so is concluded by the
judgment there rendered. (By way of parenthesis, it may be said further that the
statements just made are offered to meet the argument advanced during our
discussion to the effect that the court should treat the interests of the Manila
Electric Company as involved in both litigations and should thus consider the
company as a real party without right now to protest against the judgment.)

It is our ruling that prejudicial error was committed in the
admission by the trial court of Exhibits A to F, but that since the plaintiff
made the proper offer to present its witnesses, the case should be remanded for
a new trial.

II. It has been suggested that having passed on the first error
that would be sufficient. Theoretically, that is true. Practically, it is a
fallacious argument. A new trial left unguided would immediately raise questions
which would need to be passed upon eventually by this court. Also if the
customary defense in civil actions for damages is to be held sufficient, the new
trial would be fruitless and the appeal might just as well be dismissed now as
later, in view of the stipulations appearing in the record.

We desire to pay our respects to the second error assigned and
to the point of whether or not a case of this character should be governed by
the provisions of the Penal Code or by the provisions of the Civil Code.

The Penal Code authorizes the imposition of subsidiary
liability in default of the persons criminally liable. Article 20 of the Penal
Code provides that this subsidiary liability shall “apply to masters, teachers,
persons, and corporations engaged in any kind of industry for felonies and
misdemeanors committed by their servants, pupils, workmen, apprentices, or
employees in the discharge of their duties” It is under this provision that the
City of Manila is attempting to collect damages from the Manila Electric
Company. If the Philippines still lay beneath the dominion of Spain, the
pronouncement of primary and subsidiary liability would be taken much as a
matter of course. (See decisions of the Supreme Court of Spain of October
10,1884, January 3, 1887, June 15, 1889, March 6, 1897, December 14, 1894,
February 19, 1902; 2 Viada Codigo Penal Comentado, 5th ed., pp. 487-495; 1
Hidalgo Codigo Penal, pp. 331-334; 1 Groizard Codigo Penal, pp. 736-738; Opinion
of the Fiscal of the Supreme Court of Justice of Spain of January 17, 1865, 22.
Revista de Legislacion, y Jurisprudencia, p. 412; Codigo Penal of Spain of 1928,
art. 78.) The Penal Code then takes cognizance of the Civil Code when in article
133 it is provided: “Civil liability arising from felonies or misdemeanors shall
be extinguished in the same manner as other obligations, in accordance with the
rules of civil law.”

In connection with the Penal Code, there must be taken into
view ‘certain provisions of the Civil Code. Book IV, Title XVI, Chapter II, of
the Civil Code concerns obligations which arise from fault or negligence. It is
provided in Article 1903 that the obligation imposed for the damage to another
caused by fault or negligence is enforeible against those persons for whom
another is responsible. But it is added that “The liability imposed by this
article shall cease in case the persons subject thereto prove that they
exercised all the diligence of a good father of a family to prevent the damage.”
Found prior to these articles of the Civil Code in the Chapter of Title I, Book
IV, pertaining to general provisions of obligations, are articles 1092 and 1093.
The first provides: “Civil obligations arising1 from crimes or misdemeanors
shall be governed by the provisions of the Penal Code.” The last mentioned
provides: “Those arising from wrongful or negligent acts or omissions not
punishable by law shall be subject to the provisions of Chapter second of Title
sixteen of this boofc.”—that is among others to the provisions of article 1903
above-mentioned.

Manresa, speaking of article 1092 of the Civil Code, offers the
following comment:

“The Penal Code treats of this matter, first, in Chapter II,
Title 2, of Book I, determining therein who are civilly liable for crimes or
misdemeanors and in what manner, and stating in Title 4 of the same Book the
extent and purposes of said obligations. Said Book I ends with article 136,
which makes express reference to the civil legislation, which reference, as may
be seen, is also made in other provisions.

“In those mutual references of one legislation to another,
there is no doubt as to the application of one or the other, nor can they be
criticized, since they are well grounded.

“The Civil Code refers to the Penal Code as the rule applicable
in the first place, since the latter determines and punishes the acts giving
rise to said obligations, or creates said obligations, thereby determining their
existence and is, therefore, for that reason of preferential application. But,
then, as the Penal Code is concerned with, and is interested only in determining
how the civil obligation it creates comes into existence and develops under the
influence of the illicit character of the act from which it arises and in the
guilt of the subject of said obligation, as a consequence of said illicit
character, it lays down only those rules inspired by those motives; and once the
connection of that obligation with the criminal liability is established in its
provisions, with the consequences that may be inferred from the fact that the
former is based on the latter; and after an effort has been made, within the
sphere of that civil responsibility, toward making the indemnification
coextensive with the effects of the crime, and a special necessity, which is
characteristic of punishment and is the subject matter of the Penal Code, has
been shown in the provisions regulating said liability, the Penal Code, could
not, without going beyond its one sphere, give all the rules relative to said
obligations, nor did it have any necessity for doing so, because once the
peculiar nature of said obligations is saved by its provisions, the essence
thereof common to the other obligations must, as in the latter, be denned by the
civil law, which will thus become an important source, although suppletory, of
those derived from crime.

“The peculiar rules of the Penal Code, as may
be seen, are inspired by those motives which, as we have stated, might make them
necessary for said Code to establish, as distinguished from the criterion of the
civil law with regard to obligations in general. Thus, the fundamental
declaration of article 18 gives the connection of civil obligation with criminal
liability and explains the origin of the former: article 19 solves the doubt
which that connection, among certain liabilities, may create, and determining
its limits in the nature and consequences of the act, it mentions those which
are of a civil nature, basing the civil liability upon principles of justice,
and rather upon casualty than upon liability of a criminal character. The
intention to make indemnification proportionate to the nature and effects of the
act, from which the obligation arises, inspires the provisions contained in
articles 121 to 124, both inclusive; the necessity to distinguish, in order to
give the consequences which the crime may produce within the sphere of civil
law, whether or not the persons thereby bound are guilty, prevails in article
128 and partly in article 122; article 125 gives the essential difference
between the civil obligation and the personal criminal liability, and dissipates
a doubt which, due to the tatter’s intransmissibUity, might arise as to the
former by reason of its accessory character in connection with the other, and by
the intimate connection between both which the crime or misdemeanor creates and
the criminal law declares; the influence of the severity on the punishment is
noted in articles 20 and 21, even though the latter coincide with the criterion
followed in analogous cases by the Civil Code, and already deviating from the
latter’s criterion by reason of that severity founded on the illicit origin of
the obligations which it declares, it provides for the latter a necessary
solidarity in article 127; and abandoning also the criterion of the civil law in
article 126, it establishes within that solidarity, not the presumption of equal
division which the latter provides in such a case, but a prudent division which
may, and generally must be, unequal, in order that the influence of the
different participation in the crime or misdemeanor which is the origin of the
former may also reach the Civil obligation.

“In all other respects, and even in some of those same
features, either by the express reference of the articles which provide for
them, or by the latter’s influence, the civil obligation shall be subject to the
Civil Code, which even in some of those peculiar rules has supposed a
modification in so far as it does not establish the benefit of exemption to the
extent needed for support, as provided for in the Penal Code.

“While the Civil Code, in its article 1092, simply makes
reference to the Penal Code, yet, it is beyond doubt that by this reference it
means those rules of a general nature which regulate the civil liability arising
from the particular crimes or misdemeanors therein mentioned, and that, in
connection therewith, they shall have the preferential application which this
article recognizes in favor of the Penal Code.” (8 Manresa Codigo Civil
Español, 3d ed., pp. 28-32.)

The case of Rakes vs. Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Co. ([1907], 7
Phil., 359), is one of the widest known authorities on the subject of damages.
But that was strictly a civil action not predicated on or related to a criminal
action. It was said: “Inasmuch as no criminal proceeding had been instituted,
growing out of the accident in question, the provisions of the Penal Code cannot
affect this action. This construction renders it unnecessary to finally
determine here whether this subsidiary civil liability in penal actions has
survived the laws that fully regulated it or has been abrogated by the American
civil and criminal procedure now in force in the Philippines.” That such
subsidiary civil liability in penal actions has not been abrogated by later
laws, seems fairly well established. Section 107 of the Code of Criminal
Procedure recognizes the rights of persons injured by the offense to take part
in the prosecution of the offense and to recover damages. It is there provided
that “the court upon conviction of the accused may enter judgment against him
for the damages occasioned by his wrongful act.” Authoritative decisions have
also leaned in the direction of taking it for granted that civil liability could
be fixed in the criminal action. While the law of criminal procedure is silent
on the subject of subsidiary liability, so far as we can see, there could exist
no good reason for not permitting the action to be carried forward to the second
stage and there to fix subsidiary liability.

With this preliminary point out of the way, there is no
escaping the conclusion that the provisions of the Penal Code govern. The Penal
Code in easily understandable language authorizes the determination of
subsidiary liability. The Civil Code negatives its application by providing that
civil obligations arising from crimes or misdemeanors shall be governed by the
provisions of the Penal Code. The conviction of the motorman was a misdemeanor
falling under article 604 of the Penal Code. The act of the motorman was not a
wrongful or negligent act or omission not punishable by law. Accordingly, the
civil obligation connected up with the Penal Code and not with article 1903 of
the Civil Code. In other words, the Penal Code affirms its jurisdiction while
the Civil Code negatives its jurisdiction. This is a case of criminal negligence
out of which civil liability arises and not a case of civil negligence.

The decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of
Almeida Chantangco and Lete vs. Abaroa, supra, should be read in connection both
with the discussion of the first assignment of error and the question now before
us. In that decision, Mr. Justice Lurton, delivering the opinion of the court,
said:

“The case is, however, one which we conceive must be governed
by the local law of the Philippine Islands, and the single question to which we
need address ourselves is as to whether that law was rightly applied by the
local tribunals.

“Article 1902 of the Civil Code in force in the Philippine
Islands reads thus: ‘A person who, by an act or omission, causes damage to
another when there is fault or negligence, shall be obliged to repair the damage
so done.’ By articles 1092 and 1093 of the same Code provision is made for the
enforcement of civil liability, varying in character according to the origin of
the liability. Thus, article 1092 provides that civil obligations arising from
crimes and misdemeanors shall be governed by the provisions of the Penal Code.
On the other hand, article 1093 provides that ‘those arising from acts or
omissions, in which fault or negligence, not punished by law, occurs, shall be
subject to the provisions of chapter second of title sixteen of this book.’ The
action here involved corner directly under article 1092, above set out, and is
not an action arising from ‘fault or negligence, not punished by law.’ The
complaint alleges that the act of burning was ‘malicious and unlawful’ and not
that it was the result of any ‘fault or negligence/ This was the construction
placed upon the complaint by both the courts below, and is a construction not
challenged here. It follows that we must turn to the Penal Code to discover when
a civil action arises out of a crime or misdemeanor, and the procedure of the
enforcement of such civil liability. Article 17 of the Penal Code reads as
follows: ‘Every person criminally liable for a crime or misdemeanor is also
civilly liable.’ May this civil liability be enforced without a prior legal
determination of the fact of the defendant’s guilt of crime? Does civil
liability exist at all if the defendant has been found not guilty of the acts
out of which the civil liability arises? The opinion of the court below was that
a judgment of conviction was essential to an action for indemnification under
the applicable local law. To this conclusion we assent, upon the following
considerations:

“First, by the positive legislation of the Philippine
Codes, civil and criminal, a distinction is drawn between a civil liability
which results from the mere negligence of the defendant and a liability for the
civil consequences of a crime by which another has sustained loss or injury.

“Second, the plain inference from article 17, above set out, is
that civil liability springs out of and is dependent upon facts which, if true,
would constitute a crime or misdemeanor.

“Third, the Philippine Code of Procedure plainly contemplates
that the civil liability of the defendant shall be ascertained and declared in
the criminal proceedings.

“Thus, section 742 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, after
requiring that, in a criminal proceeding, all of the minor or incidental
offenses included in the principal crime shall be decided, adds: ‘All questions
relating to the civil liability which may have been the subject-matter of the
charge shall be decided in the sentence.’

“The foregoing considerations eliminate any question of the
effect of such a judgment of acquittal under the principles of the common law
and require an affirmance of the judgment of the court below as properly based
upon the applicable substantive law of the Philippine Islands, which has not
been superseded by legislation since the establishment of the present Philippine
Government.”

The facts here are distinguishable from those in Chaves and
Garcia vs. Manila Electric Railroad and Light Company ([1915], 31 Phil., 47). In
the cited case, while the motorman was prosecuted and convicted, his sentence
included no imposition of civil liability. So the court correctly held, although
without discussion, that the employer was not liable in damages resulting from
the criminal negligence of his employee, when he has exercised the care of a
good father of a family in selecting said employee.

In the later decision of this court in Francisco vs. Onrubia
([1924], 46 Phi., 327), the court gave attention to a similar question. Speaking
through Mr. Justice Villamor, the court reached the following conclusions:

“Article 1902 of the Civil Code has no application in the
instant case, first, because said article presupposes the existence of fault or
negligence upon which the action is based, and second, it refers to a fault or
negligence not punishable by law, because if the fault or negligence is punished
by law, it ceases to be the quasi crime of negligence having purely civil
effects, and becomes a crime or misdemeanor, according to the gravity of the
penalty imposed by the law, and in that case it comes within the purview of
article 1092 of the Civil Code. Under the facts set forth in the complaint, if
there was any fault or negligence on the part of the defendant, it must
necessarily be a fault punishable by law (arts. 568, 590, and 604 of the Penal
Code), for through said fault he caused the death of the plaintiff’s son.
Homicide through reckless imprudence is punished as a crime, and therefore the
provisions applicable would be those of the Penal Code and the Law of Criminal
Procedure above cited.”

Our deduction, therefore, is that the case relates to the Penal
Code and not to the Civil Code. Indeed, as pointed out by the trial judge, any
different ruling would permit the master to escape scot-free by simply alleging
and proving that the master had exercised all diligence in the selection and
training of its servants to prevent the damage. That would be a good defense to
a strictly civil action, but might or might not be to a civil action either a
part of or. predicated on conviction for a crime or misdemeanor. (By way of
parenthesis, it may be said further that the statements here made are offered to
meet the argument advanced during our deliberations to the effect that article
1092 of the Civil Code should be disregarded and codal articles 1093 and 1903
applied.)

In accordance with the foregoing, the judgment appealed from
will be set aside, and the record remanded to the lower court for a new trial.
Without special finding as to costs in this instance, it will be so ordered.

Avanceña, C. J., Street, Villamor, Romualdez, and Villa-Real,
JJ., concur.

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CONCURRING

JOHNSON, J.: 

In this jurisdiction the rule is, that all liabilities, civil
and criminal, resulting from crimes and misdemeanors, shall be decided in the
same case. No such rule exists in the United States. To avoid a multiplicity of
actions, therefore, all persons who are civilly and criminally liable as a
result of crimes and misdemeanors, should be cited to appear for the purpose of
making their defense. All such persons are proper parties. There is no reason in
law why there should be more than one action to settle both the criminal and
civil liabilities.

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CONCURRING

JOHNS, J.:

I concur in the result on the first assignment of error and at
this time decline to express any opinion as to the second.

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DISSENTING

OSTRAND, J.:

Judgment set aside, and record remanded for new trial.