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HIDALGO ENTERPRISES, INC. v. BALANDAN

While playing, an 8-year-old boy drowned in one of the unfenced cooling tanks located in the factory. The lower courts found the factory owner liable, applying the attractive nuisance doctrine. However, the Supreme Court ruled that the doctrine generally does not apply to artificial or natural bodies of water unless there is an unusual condition or feature beyond the water itself. Nature creates pools and bodies of water that attract children, and they are presumed to understand the danger of drowning. Therefore, the factory was not liable merely for duplicating a natural body of water on its property.

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Ansai Claudine Calugan
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37 views1 page

HIDALGO ENTERPRISES, INC. v. BALANDAN

While playing, an 8-year-old boy drowned in one of the unfenced cooling tanks located in the factory. The lower courts found the factory owner liable, applying the attractive nuisance doctrine. However, the Supreme Court ruled that the doctrine generally does not apply to artificial or natural bodies of water unless there is an unusual condition or feature beyond the water itself. Nature creates pools and bodies of water that attract children, and they are presumed to understand the danger of drowning. Therefore, the factory was not liable merely for duplicating a natural body of water on its property.

Uploaded by

Ansai Claudine Calugan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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(158) HIDALGO ENTERPRISES, INC. v.

BALANDAN
G.R. No. L-3422 June 13, 1952

The attractive nuisance doctrine generally is not applicable to bodies of water, artificial as well as
natural, in the absence of some unusual condition or artificial feature other than the mere water
and its location.

FACTS: Hidalgo Enterprises, Inc. "was the owner of an ice-plant factory in the City of San Pablo,
Laguna, in whose premises were installed two tanks full of water, nine feet deep, for cooling
purposes of its engine. While the factory compound was surrounded with fence, the tanks
themselves were not provided with any kind of fence or top covers. The edges of the tanks were
barely a foot high from the surface of the ground. Through the wide gate entrance, which is
continually open, motor vehicles hauling ice and persons buying said commodity passed, and
any one could easily enter the said factory, as he pleased. There was no guard assigned on the
gate. At about noon of April 16, 1948, plaintiff's son, Mario Balandan, a boy barely 8 years old,
while playing with and in company of other boys of his age entered the factory premises
through the gate, to take a bath in one of said tanks; and while thus bathing, Mario sank to the
bottom of the tank, only to be fished out later, already a cadaver, having been died of “asphyxia
secondary to drowning ”.

The Court of Appeals, and the Court of First Instance of Laguna, took the view that the
petitioner maintained an attractive nuisance (the tanks), and neglected to adopt the necessary
precautions to avoid accidents to persons entering its premises. It applied the doctrine of
attractive nuisance, of American origin, recognized in our Jurisdiction in Taylor vs. Manila
Electric 16 Phil., 8. The doctrine may be stated, in short, as follows:

One who maintains on his premises dangerous instrumentalities or appliances of a


character likely to attract children in play, and who fails to exercise ordinary care to
prevent children from playing therewith or resorting thereto, is liable to a child of
tender years who is injured thereby, even if the child is technically a trespasser in the
premises.

ISSUE:  Is the subject body of water an attractive nuisance?

RULING: No. The attractive nuisance doctrine generally is not applicable to bodies of water,
artificial as well as natural, in the absence of some unusual condition or artificial feature other
than the mere water and its location.

Nature has created streams, lakes and pools which attract children. Lurking in their
waters is always the danger of drowning. Against this danger children are early instructed so
that they are sufficiently presumed to know the danger; and if the owner of private property
creates an artificial pool on his own property, merely duplicating the work of nature without
adding any new danger, . . . (he) is not liable because of having created an "attractive nuisance." 

The appealed decision is reversed and the Hidalgo Enterprises, Inc. is absolved
from liability.

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