TORTS AND DAMAGES

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

Sources Of Law On Torts And Damages. The law on Torts and Damages, as
it is referred to in the law curriculum, is based on several articles spread in the New
Civil Code and special laws, particularly the following-

(1) Chapter on Quasi-Delicts (Articles 2176 to 2194):

(2) Chapter on Quasi-Contracts (See: Articles 2144. 2145, 2146, 2147, 2148, 2150,
2151 and 2159):
(3) Chapter on Human Relations (Articles 19 to 36):
(4) Articles 1172 to 1174 of the New Civil Code which are made applicable to quasi-
delicts (See: Article 2178):
(5) Article 1723. New Civil Code (See: Article 2192);
(6) Article 2003. New Civil Code:
(7) Article 309, New Civil Code (See: Article 2219 [9]):
(8) Art. 1314 (Contractual Interference), NCC:
(9) Family Code of the Philippines (Executive Order 209):
(10) Articles 100 to 103 of the Revised Penal Code (See also: Art. 2177, NCC):
(11) Title XVIII (Damages) covering Articles 2195 to 2235. New Civil Code:
(12) Chapter on Nuisance (Articles 694 to 707, NCC):
(13) Chapter III. Section 4 (Common Carriers) cover-ing Articles 1755 to 1763. New
Civil Code;
(14) R.A. No. 7877 (Anti-Sexual Harrassment Act):
(15) Supreme Court decisions;
(16) American law and jurisprudence: and
(17) Opinion of legal authors.

Quasi-Delict, Concept. Whoever by act or omission causes damage to

another, there being fault or negligence, is obliged to pay for the damage done.
Such fault or negli-gence, if there is no pre-existing contractual relation be-tween
the parties, is called a quasi-delict and is governed by the provisions of this Chapter
(Art. 2176, NCC).

Tort, Concept. A tort is a wrong independent of a contract, which arises from

an act or omission of a person which causes some injury or damage directly or
indirectly to another person.

A legal wrong committed upon the person or property independent of contract. It

may be either (1) a direct invasion of some legal right of the individual; (2) the
infraction of some public duty by which special damage accrues to the individual;
(3) the violation of some private obligation by which like damage accrues to the
individual (Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Ed., p. 1489).

It is an act or omission, not a breach of contract and not involving a quasi-contract,

which causes injury and which at common law or by statute creates a claim for
damages in the injured person (Philippine Encyclopedia, p. 1068, 1991 ed.).

No Exhaustive List Of Tortious Acts. It is impossible to list exhaustively all

the acts which under existing laws are considered torts. The word "tort" is the
ordinary French word for "wrong." and was used in the general sense, in common
law sources, but was not used as a technical term of law until the beginning of the
nineteenth century (ibid).
 A tort is an offense against the individual but it may. at the same time, be a
crime, i.e., an offense against the state. A tort may arise out of contractual
relations, e.g., a contract induced by fraudulent representations. Misappropriation
of trust funds may be a crime, a tort or breach of contract. Some breaches of legal
duty which constitute torts at common law are trespass, trover and case. The most
important torts are libel, slander, negligence, false imprisonment, malicious
prosecution, nuisance, assault and battery. fraud, conversion, interference with
contractual relations and malpractice (Philippine Legal Encyclo-pedia, p. 1068, 1991
ed.).

Reason Why The Term Quasi-Delict Instead Of Tort Was Used In The Civil
Code. The term quasi-delict was deliberately used by the Code Commission to
designate obligations which do not arise from law, contracts, quasi-contracts, or
criminal offenses (See: Art. 1157). The term tort was not used because it is broader
in coverage as it covers, in common law countries, acts which are intentional or
malicious, which latter acts in the general plan of the Philippine legal system are
governed by the Penal Code (See: Report, Code Commission, pp. 161-162).

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Trover is a tort, the common law equivalent of the action of conversion. The name (Fr. "trover," to find) arose from
the fiction that defendant had found the article and refused to re-turn it to the owner. This eliminated the necessity
of proving a wrongful taking (Philippine Legal Encyclopedia, p. 1085, 1991 ed.).

* Properly an "Assault is merely the attempt or the threat to strike someone. The actual striking is called the
"battery." The two terms, however, are most frequently used together and in ordinary parlance from a single
expression. Both assault alone and assault and battery, are torts for which an action at law may be maintained. And
in most jurisdictions, both are misdemeanors (Philippine Legal Encyclopedia, p. 59, 1991 ed.).

Unfortunately, in the law curriculum, the course is known as "Torts and Damages"
instead of "Quasi-delicts and Damages". To avoid confusion, the term "Torts" in the
law curriculum should be changed to "Quasi-Delicts".
 Tort Contradistinguished From Crime. Tort is a private wrong or injury. It is
an infringement of the private or civil rights of another, hence, pursued by the
private individual. It seeks indemnity for damage or injury sustained without
seeking the imprisonment of the tortfeasor. Crime, on the other hand, is an offense
against the public being a punishable act and is pursued by the sovereign authority.
It generally seeks the curtailment of the liberty or imprisonment of the offender
with possible civil liability.
The quantum of evidence in torts or quasi-delicts is only preponderance of
evidence, whereas, in crime, it is proof beyond reasonable doubt. The former is
governed by the New Civil Code while the latter by Revised Penal Code.
"The term quasi-delict was devised in Roman Law to cover cases of liability,
where although there was neither intention nor fault, liability was imposed on
ground of expediency. e.g., a householder was liable if something was thrown out
from his dwelling and injured a passerby. The obvious difficulty of discovering the
actual perpetrator would have meant in practice frequent denial of a remedy in the
absence of such rule. In French law, delict is con-fined to intentional injury and
quasi-delict is used to cover injury caused by negligence. In English law there is no
such distinction, the term "tort" covering both intentional and negligent injury as
well as strict liability" (A Textbook of Jurisprudence, G.W. Paton, pp. 418-421 [1964]
cited in Sangco's Torts and Damages, p. 407, Vol. I, 1993 Ed.).
The Spanish Civil Code from which our own was mainly derived, is largely
based on the French Civil Code.
As in the French Code, the Spanish, and our own, recognized the proposition
that a quasi-delict or culpa aquiliana is a separate legal institution under the Civil
Code with a substantivity all its own. and individuality that is entirely apart and
independent from delict or crime" (ibid).

Deviation From The Intention Of The Code Commission. The decision in

Barredo vs. Garcia (73 Phil. 607) contradicted the intention of the Code Commission
which used the term quasi-delict instead of torts to avoid the inclusion of the other
sources of obligations like con-tracts and delicts. The deviation has caused
confusion.
 Quasi-Delict Covers Both Punishable And Non-Punishable Negligence. The
traditional concept of quasi-delict is one that excludes acts which are intentional or
malicious and acts which arise from pre-existing con-tracts. However, the Supreme
Court in one case, which Judge Cesar Sangco describes in his book on Torts and
Damages as the "initial perversion of the traditional con-cept of the quasi-delictual
act or omissin*** as referring to acts not punishable by law, has held in Barredo vs.
Garcia (supra) that-

"Quasi-delict include punishable and non-punishable acts or omission so that the same
act or omission may give rise to two (2) obligations against both the author thereof and those
legally responsible for the latter, to wit: one based on the crime commit-ted, and another based
on quasi-delict; and the injured party is free to choose which of the two liabilities he shall enforce
against them."

Thus, in effect, the decision followed the English Law on Torts which makes
no distinctions between intentional and negligent injuries.
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See also: Salen vs. Balce, 107 Phil. 748; Exconde vs. Capuno, 101 Phil. 843: Araneta
vs. Arreglado, 101 Phil. 24. Sangeo, Torts and Damages, Vol. 1, 1993 Ed., p. 415.