TOGUAY, Paul Jeffrey U.

2019-80129
Block 4
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the petition is DENIED, and the decision of respondent Court of
Appeals is hereby AFFIRMED with the modification that the amount of compensatory damages for the
death of Harold Jim Baesa and Marcelino Baesa are increased to Thirty Thousand Pesos (P30,000.00)
each.

SO ORDERED.

Citation G.R. No. L-65295

Date March 10, 1987

Petitioner PHOENIX CONSTRUCTION, INC. and ARMANDO U. CARBONEL

Respondent THE INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE COURT and LEONARDO DIONISIO

PRINCIPLES/
DOCTRINES

FELICIANO, J:

FACTS:
At about 1:30 a.m., private respondent Leonardo Dionisio was on his way home in Makati —
from a cocktails-and-dinner meeting with his boss, the general manager of a marketing corporation.
During the cocktails phase of the evening, Dionisio had taken "a shot or two" of liquor. Dionisio was
driving his Volkswagen car and had just crossed an intersection, not far from his home, and was
proceeding down a street when his car headlights (in his allegation) suddenly failed. He switched his
headlights on "bright" and thereupon he saw a Ford dump truck looming some 2-1/2 meters away from
his car.

Petitioner Phoenix Construction Inc. owned the dump truck. It was parked on the right hand
side of the street (i.e., on the right hand side of a person facing in the same direction toward which
Dionisio's car was proceeding), facing the oncoming traffic. The dump truck was parked askew (not
parallel to the street curb) in such a manner as to stick out onto the street, partly blocking the way of
oncoming traffic. There were no lights nor any so-called "early warning" reflector devices set anywhere
near the dump truck, front or rear. It was parked by its driver Armando U. Carbonel with the
permission of his employer. Dionisio claimed that he tried to avoid a collision by swerving his car to
the left but it was too late and his car smashed into the dump truck. As a result of the collision,
Dionisio suffered some physical injuries including some permanent facial scars, a "nervous breakdown"
and loss of two gold bridge dentures.

Dionisio commenced an action for damages in the Court of First Instance of Pampanga basically
claiming that the legal and proximate cause of his injuries was the negligent manner in which
Carbonel had parked the dump truck entrusted to him by his employer Phoenix. Phoenix and
Carbonel, on the other hand, countered that the proximate cause of Dionisio's injuries was his own
recklessness in driving fast at the time of the accident, while under the influence of liquor, without his
headlights on and without a curfew pass. Phoenix also sought to establish that it had exercised due
rare in the selection and supervision of the dump truck driver.

The trial court rendered judgment in favor of Dionisio and against Phoenix and Carbonel.

Phoenix and Carbonel appealed to the Intermediate Appellate Court. That court affirmed the
decision of the trial court but modified the award of damages.

ISSUE:
1. Whether or not Dionisio was negligent.

2. Whether the proximate cause of the accident is Dionisio’s negligence or Phoenix’s.

3. Whether or not the Doctrine of Last Clear Chance is applicable in the case.
RULING:
1. YES. Dionisio was negligent.

No curfew pass was found on the person of Dionisio immediately after the accident nor was any
found in his car. Dionisio's car was "moving fast" and did not have its headlights on. he had his
headlights on but that, at the crucial moment, these had in some mysterious if convenient way
malfunctioned and gone off, although he succeeded in switching his lights on again at "bright" split
seconds before contact with the dump truck to avoid the police. private respondent Dionisio smelled
of liquor at the time he was taken from his smashed car and brought to the Makati Medical Center in
an unconscious condition.

The conclusion we draw from the factual circumstances outlined above is that private
respondent Dionisio was negligent the night of the accident. He was hurrying home that night and
driving faster than he should have been. Worse, he extinguished his headlights at or near the
intersection of General Lacuna and General Santos Streets and thus did not see the dump truck that
was parked askew and sticking out onto the road lane.

private respondent Dionisio's negligence was "only contributory," that the "immediate and
proximate cause" of the injury remained the truck driver's "lack of due care" and that consequently
respondent Dionisio may recover damages though such damages are subject to mitigation by the
courts (Article 2179, Civil Code of the Philippines).

2. The legal and proximate cause of the accident and of Dionisio's injuries was the wrongful — or
negligent manner in which the dump truck was parked in other words, the negligence of petitioner
Carbonel.

That there was a reasonable relationship between petitioner Carbonel's negligence on the one
hand and the accident and respondent's injuries on the other hand, is quite clear. Put in a slightly
different manner, the collision of Dionisio's car with the dump truck was a natural and foreseeable
consequence of the truck driver's negligence.

the truck driver's negligence far from being a "passive and static condition" was rather an
indispensable and efficient cause. The collision between the dump truck and the private respondent's
car would in an probability not have occurred had the dump truck not been parked askew without any
warning lights or reflector devices. The improper parking of the dump truck created an unreasonable
risk of injury for anyone driving down General Lacuna Street and for having so created this risk, the
truck driver must be held responsible. In our view, Dionisio's negligence, although later in point of
time than the truck driver's negligence and therefore closer to the accident, was not an efficient
intervening or independent cause. What the Petitioners describe as an "intervening cause" was no
more than a foreseeable consequent manner which the truck driver had parked the dump truck. In
other words, the petitioner truck driver owed a duty to private respondent Dionisio and others
similarly situated not to impose upon them the very risk the truck driver had created. Dionisio's
negligence was not of an independent and overpowering nature as to cut, as it were, the chain of
causation in fact between the improper parking of the dumptruck and the accident, nor to sever the
juris vinculum of liability.

3. NO. The Doctrine of Last Clear Chance is not applicable in the case.

To accept this proposition is to come too close to wiping out the fundamental principle of law that a
man must respond for the forseeable consequences of his own negligent act or omission. Our law on
quasi-delicts seeks to reduce the risks and burdens of living in society and to allocate them among the
members of society. To accept the petitioners' pro-position must tend to weaken the very bonds of
society.