NEGROS NAVIGATION CO. vs COURT OF APPEALS | G.R. No. 110398 | November 7, 1997

NEGROS NAVIGATION CO. vs COURT OF APPEALS

G.R. No. 110398, November 7, 1997 

Facts

In April of 1980, private respondent Ramon Miranda purchased from the Negros Navigation Co., Inc. four special cabin tickets (#74411, 74412, 74413 and 74414) for his wife, daughter, son and niece who were going to Bacolod City to attend a family reunion. The tickets were for Voyage No. 457-A of the M/V Don Juan, leaving Manila at 1:00 p.m. on April 22, 1980. The ship sailed from the port of Manila on schedule. 

At about 10:30 in the evening of April 22, 1980, the Don Juan collided off the Tablas Strait in Mindoro, with the M/T Tacloban City, an oil tanker owned by the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC) and the PNOC Shipping and Transport Corporation (PNOC/STC).  As a result, the M/V Don Juan sank. Several of her passengers perished in the sea tragedy.  The bodies of some of the victims were found and brought to shore, but the four members of private respondents‘ families were never found. 

Private respondents filed a complaint on July 16, 1980 in the Regional Trial Court of Manila, Branch 34, against the Negros Navigation, the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC), and the PNOC Shipping and Transport Corporation (PNOC/STC), seeking damages for the death of Ardita de la Victoria Miranda, 48, Rosario V. Miranda, 19, Ramon V. Miranda, Jr., 16, and Elfreda de la Victoria, 26. In its answer, petitioner admitted that private respondents purchased ticket numbers 74411, 74412, 74413 and 74414; that the ticket numbers were listed in the passenger manifest; and that the Don Juan left Pier 2, North Harbor, Manila on April 22, 1980 and sank that night after being rammed by the oil tanker M/T Tacloban City, and that, as a result of the collision, some of the passengers of the M/V Don Juan died.  Petitioner, however, denied that the four relatives of private respondents actually boarded the vessel as shown by the fact that their bodies were never recovered.  Petitioner further averred that the Don Juan was seaworthy and manned by a full and competent crew, and that the collision was entirely due to the fault of the crew of the M/T Tacloban City. 

On January 20, 1986, the PNOC and petitioner Negros Navigation Co., Inc. entered into a compromise agreement whereby petitioner assumed full responsibility for the payment and satisfaction of all claims arising out of or in connection with the collision and releasing the PNOC and the PNOC/STC from any liability to it.  The agreement was subsequently held by the trial court to be binding upon petitioner, PNOC and PNOC/STC.  Private respondents did not join in the agreement. 

Issues

a) Whether the members of private respondents‘ families were actually passengers of the Don Juan;

b) Whether the ruling in Mecenas v. Court of Appeals, finding the crew members of petitioner to be grossly negligent in the performance of their duties, is binding in this case;

c) Whether the total loss of the M/V Don Juan extinguished petitioner‘s liability; and

d) Whether the damages awarded by the appellate court are excessive, unreasonable and unwarranted. 

Ruling

First.  The trial court held that the fact that the victims were passengers of the M/V Don Juan was sufficiently proven by private respondent Ramon Miranda, who testified that he purchased tickets numbered 74411, 74412, 74413, and 74414 at P131.30 each from the Makati office of petitioner for Voyage No. 47-A of the M/V Don Juan, which was leaving Manila on April 22, 1980. This was corroborated by the passenger manifest (Exh. E) On which the numbers of the tickets and the names of Ardita Miranda and her children and Elfreda de la Victoria appear.

Second.  In finding petitioner guilty of negligence and in failing to exercise the extraordinary diligence required of it in the carriage of passengers, both the trial court and the appellate court relied on the findings of this Court in Mecenas v. Intermediate Appellate Court, which case was brought for the death of other passengers.  In that case it was found that although the proximate cause of the mishap was the negligence of the crew of the M/T Tacloban City, the crew of the Don Juan was equally negligent as it found that the latter‘s master, Capt. Rogelio Santisteban, was playing mahjong at the time of collision, and the officer on watch, Senior Third Mate Rogelio De Vera, admitted that he failed to call the attention of Santisteban to the imminent danger facing them.  This Court found that Capt. Santisteban and the crew of the M/V Don Juan failed to take steps to prevent the collision or at least delay the sinking of the ship and supervise the abandoning of the ship.

Third.  The next issue is whether petitioner is liable to pay damages notwithstanding the total loss of its ship.  The issue is not one of first impression.  The rule is well-entrenched in our jurisprudence that a ship-owner may be held liable for injuries to passengers notwithstanding the exclusively real and hypothetic nature of maritime law if fault can be attributed to the ship-owner.

Fourth.  Petitioner contends that, assuming that the Mecenas case applies, private respondents should be allowed to claim only P43,857.14 each as moral damages because in the Mecenas case, the amount of P307,500.00 was awarded to the seven children of the Mecenas couple.  Under petitioner‘s formula, Ramon Miranda should receive P43, 857.14, while the De la Victoria spouses should receive P97, 714.28.