G.R. No. 34194. February 20, 1932
BENIGNA CAUNAN, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. COMPANIA GENERAL DE TABACOS DE FILIPINAS, DEFENDANT AND APPELLEE.
IMPERIAL, J.:
brought this action under the Workmen’s Compensation Act to recover a certain
sum of money from the defendant, a commercial company duly organized and
registered in accordance with law, by way of compensation for the death of said
deceased, which took place while he was working for said company. The plaintiff
appealed from the judgment of the Court of First Instance of Tayabas dismissing
her complaint, without costs.
The facts proven have been summed up by the trial court as follows:
“Before the incident in question occurred, the defendant maintained a branch
house where rice and cigarettes were sold. Ten years before, the branch had been
closed, and since that time the company had engaged in Mauban exclusively in the
purchase of copra. While the house was being so used, the ground floor served as
the office and the first story as the dwelling place of the employees. The
actual operations and transactions with regard to the purchase of copra took
place in a shed situated about seven meters from the house. However, the
employees did not live in the house by way of partial compensation for their
services, but as caretakers of the building.“Under these circumstances, the roof of the house required repairing. The
defendant had its employee in Lucena, Alejandro Maralit, look for a carpenter to
undertake the repairs. He engaged carpenter Esteban Madeja, who needed
additional men, and, among others, secured the services of Gregorio Afable, the
plaintiff’s son. On October 3, 1929, Esteban Madeja, Gregorio Afable, and the
other carpenters went over to Mauban, where they presented themselves to
Quiterio Borgoiia, the defendant’s head buyer in that town. These carpenters
worked from the 3d to the 5th of October. In the afternoon of the latter day,
Gregorio Afable was employed in nailing down the iron roof of the house, when,
stepping on a sheet of galvanized iron not yet nailed, he slipped and fell seven
meters to the ground, dying the following day as a result of the accident.
That afternoon it had rained, but Afable wore rubber-soled shoes.”
Counsel for the appellant assigns the following alleged errors in his
typewritten brief:
“1. The trial court erred in holding that laborer Gregorio Afable was guilty
of notorious negligence.“2. The trial court erred in not awarding to the plaintiff the compensation
provided for in paragraph (d) of section 8 of Act No. 3428.”
In our opinion the only point in controversy requiring a careful and serious
consideration is whether the injured workman was guilty of notorious negligence,
as this phrase is used in the law. This is so because, according to section 4 of
Act No. 3428 of the Philippine Legislature, notorious negligence is one of the
three grounds for denying indemnity or compensation to the workman for an
accidental injury, incapacity, or death. In view of the conclusions hereinafter
stated, we deem it unnecessary to discuss the other aspects of the case,
relative to the nature of the building where the accident occurred, and the
capacity in which the injured workman was rendering services.
The record shows, as the trial court correctly held, that on that afternoon,
before the accident occurred which proved fatal to Gregorio Afable, it had
rained and the galvanized iron roof was slippery. The deceased workman, who
could not have been inexperienced, inasmuch as he had been following his trade
for a number of years and had been working on that building for a month, in
spite of that condition, in itself dangerous, wore rubber-soled shoes, and
without taking the necessary and proper precautions that a careful workman would
take, stepped on an iron sheet not yet nailed down, and because of his own
weight, the angle of the roof, and its slippery condition, the sheet slid down
seven meters to the ground, taking him with it, as a result of which accident he
died the following day.
However much the deceased may be deserving of our sympathy, we cannot but
adhere to the conclusion at which the trial court arrived, that the accident was
caused directly or immediately by his own notorious negligence, so that his
legal representative is not entitled to any compensation.
The deceased had been working upon the roof of that building for some time,
and he knew which sheets were loose and had to be nailed down; with the exercise
of ordinary care and precaution he could have avoided the fatal step that cost
him his life. The negligence thus evinced is something more than mere
carelessness or lack of foresight, and falls under the designation of evident
and manifest, or notorious, negligence.
The appealed judgment is affirmed, without pronouncement of costs in this
instance. So ordered.
Johnson, Street, Ostrand, Rormuddez, and Villa-Real, JJ.,
concur.
DISSENTING
MALCOLM, J.
This is a case of a mother bringing action for the death of her son against
the defendant corporation pursuant to the provisions of the Workmen’s
Compensation Act, to recover the amount provided in that Act. Standing alone,
the case is not of great importance, but as it may be taken as indicative of the
attitude of the courts toward the Workmen’s Compensation Act, the case is of
paramount importance. The primary questions are these: Will the courts give a
liberal interpretation to the Workmen’s Compensation Act and thus effectuate
legislative intention, or will the courts give a strict interpretation to the
Act and thus nullify the main purposes of the law?
As pointed out in the majority decision, one Gregorio Afable, a carpenter,
while repairing the roof of a building belonging to the Compania General de
Tabacos de Filipinas, situated in the municipality of Mauban, Tayabas, fell from
the roof to the ground and received injuries which resulted in his death. The
cause of the death, according to the testimony of a witness which was accepted
by the trial court, was on account of a rain and the carpenter wearing shoes
with rubber soles which made him slip and fall when he stepped on a piece of
galvanized iron. On the other hand, according to counsel for the plaintiff,
there was no way of accounting for the manner by which the carpenter was killed.
For the purposes of the appeal, the findings of fact made by the trial judge
should be respected, and so we should frankly concede that the death of the
carpenter took place in the manner described in the portion of the decision of
the trial judge which is quoted approvingly in the majority decision.
The Workmen’s Compensation Act, No. 3428, became effective in 1928, and so is
of recent origin with little interpretative jurisprudence. It authorizes certain
dependent relatives to secure specified percentages for personal injuries of
employees. A ground for compensation is “any accident due to and in the
pursuance of the employment.” Compensation is not allowed for injuries caused by
“notorious negligence” of the laborer who had the “accident.”
The keywords in the law, it will be noted, are “accident” and “notorious
negligence.” None of the words are susceptible of technical definition. Yet,
when we ordinarily speak of “accident,” we think of something which is
unforeseen—of injuries not expected or designed by the workman himself (Heitz
vs. Ruppert [1916], 218 N. Y., 148). When we turn to the phrase
“notorious negligence,” we encounter more difficulties. The basic expression in
the British Act was “serious or willful misconduct” which some American courts
call “gross negligence.” In the Philippines, an examination of legislative
records discloses that the original draft of the Workmen’s Compensation Act made
use in English of the expression “gross negligence,” that is, the want of any or
slight care, which thereafter evolved into “notorious negligence,” which is even
stronger in significance.
With the facts as found by the trial judge, and with the meaning of the
applicable provisions of Philippine law fairly plain, the inquiry should now be
directed to determining if the occurrence was foreseen and if there was the want
of slight care on the part of the laborer. In this connection, the majority
opinion explains how the accident? which is admitted to be an accident, could
have been avoided, but finds present “notorious negligence.” We may perhaps
concede that there was carelessness, even negligence, present, but to my mind it
is difficult to conceive of the mishap being characterized by “notorious
negligence.” It is all very well at this later date to tell what the workman
should have done, but if such extraordinary care was always used, there would be
few accidents to be compensated by the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Without
permitting a refinement of definitions to obstruct the enforcement of the spirit
of the law, it may be safely asserted that when the laborer fell from the roof
there was an “accident,” and that because he happened to use rubber soled shoes,
which was customary, and inadvertently stepped on a piece of galvanized iron,
which the elements had made slippery, he did not disclose thereby “notorious
negligence” or, to use equivalent although possibly less emphatic phrases of
other jurisdictions, “serious or willful misconduct” or “gross negligence.”
After all, the attitude of the judiciary towards the Workmen’s Compensation
Act is decisive. The authorities tell us that a plain hostility to statutes of
this class was remarked in some of the earlier opinions of the United States,
and constructions were sometimes adopted which defeated in a measure the
salutary purpose of the enactment. We are told further that fortunately the
judicial attitude changed with more than usual celerity, and that the law is now
generally approved in all jurisdictions. The courts look to the purposes sought
to be accomplished, and they are inclined to a fair, indeed a liberal,
construction of the law in favor of the employee. (See generally 28 R.
C. L., pp. 739, 755, 759, 787, and 789.)
In this respect the Supreme Court of Wisconsin has said:
“The conditions giving rise to a law, the faults to be remedied, the
aspirations evidently intended to be efficiently embodied in the enactment, and
the effects and consequences as regards responding to the prevailing conceptions
of the necessities of public welfare, play an important part in shaping the
proper administration of the legislation. In the aggregate, they sometimes shed
very efficient light in aid of clearing up obscurities as to the legislative
intent. The administrative commission and the courts should fully appreciate
that and be imbued with and guided by the manifest intent of the law to
eradicate, utterly, the injustice to employers and employees, and the public as
well, of the old Bystem, and to substitute in its place an entirely new one
based on the highest conception of man’s humanity to man and obligation to
industry upon which all depend; recognizing the aggregate of its attending
accidents as an element of cost to be liquidated and balanced in money in the
course of consumption,—a system dealing with employees, employers, and the
public as necessarily mutual participants in bearing the burdens of such
accidents, displacing the one dealing only with the class of injuries happening
through inadvertent failure, without real moral turpitude, to exercise average
human care, and placing employee and employer, whose interests are economically
the same, in the false position of adversaries, to the misfortune of both and
the public, intensified by opportunity for those concerned as judicial
assistants to profit by such misfortunes. Most lamentable it will be, if this
new system—so freighted with hopes for the minimizing of human burdens and their
equitable distribution—shall not endure and be perfected to the best that human
wisdom can attain.” (Milwaukee vs. Miller [1913], 154 Wis.,
652.)
As recently as 1929, the United States Supreme Court in speaking of the
Federal Employer’s Liability Act said:
“The act is not to be narrowed by refined reasoning or for the sake of giving
‘negligence’ a technically restricted meaning. It is to be construed liberally
to fulfill the purposes for which it was enacted and to that end the word may be
read to include all the meanings given to it by courts and .within the word as
ordinarily used.” (Jamison vs. Encarnacion [1929], 281 U. S.,
635.)
The writer has gone to the trouble to scan the reports and debates in the
Philippine Legislature when the Workmen’s Compensation Act was under
consideration. Naturally there were divergencies of opinion. One representative
prophesied truly that the use of the clause “notorious negligence” was
unfortunate and would give rise to needless litigation. However, running all
through the reports and debates, there is patently evident a sincere desire on
the part of the legislators to strengthen the bill before them, to provide a
method to avoid industrial disputes, to abolish certain principles of the old
law relative to negligence, and to safeguard the rights of the working class.
Just as certainly should a spirit of liberality characterize the interpretation
of the Workmen’s Compensation Act by the courts in order to give effect to the
very laudable purposes of the Legislature.
Accepting the findings of fact and giving to the Workmen’s Compensation Act a
liberal interpretation to reflect its purposes, it is my firm, conviction that
death resulted from an “accident,” and that “notorious negligence” on the part
of the laborer was not disclosed. I must register my strong dissent and vote for
the reversal of the judgment appealed from.
VILLAMOR, J.:
I agree with the dissenting opinion of Justice Malcolm.