DAYWALT v LA CORPORACION G.R. No. L-13505 February 4, 1919 GEO. W. DAYWALT, plaintiff-appellant, vs. LA
CORPORACION DE LOS PADRES AGUSTINOS RECOLETOS, ET AL., defendants-appellees.
FACTS:
1. In the year 1902, Teodorica Endencia, an unmarried woman, resident in the Province of Mindoro, executed a contract whereby she obligated herself to convey to Geo. W. Daywalt, a tract of land situated in the barrio of Mangarin, municipality of Bulalacao, now San Jose, in said province. It was agreed that a deed should be executed as soon as the title to the land should be perfected by proceedings in the Court of Land Registration and a Torrens certificate should be produced therefore in the name of Teodorica Endencia.
2. They had several contracts to this effect. The Torrens certificate was in time issued to Teodorica Endencia, but in the course of the proceedings relative to the registration of the land, it was found by official survey that the area of the tract inclosed in the boundaries stated in the contract was about 1.248 hectares of 452 hectares as stated in the contract. In view of this development Teodorica Endencia became reluctant to transfer the whole tract to the purchaser, asserting that she never intended to sell so large an amount of land and that she had been misinformed as to its area.
3. (Supreme Court) This attitude of hers led to litigation in which Daywalt finally succeeded, upon appeal to the Supreme Court, in obtaining a decree for specific performance; and Teodorica Endencia was ordered to convey the entire tract of land to Daywalt pursuant to the contract of October 3, 1908, which contract was declared to be in full force and effect. This decree appears to have become finally effective in the early part of the year 1914.
The defendant, La Corporacion de los Padres Recoletos, is a religious corporation, with its domicile in the city of Manila. The same corporation was at this time also the owner of another estate on the same island immediately adjacent to the land which Teodorica Endencia had sold to Geo. W. Daywalt. When the Torrens certificate was finally issued in 1909 in favor of Teodorica Endencia, she delivered it for safekeeping to the defendant corporation, and it was then taken to Manila where it remained in the custody and under the control of P. Juan Labarga the procurador and chief official of the defendant corporation, until the deliver thereof to the plaintiff was made compulsory by reason of the decree of the Supreme Court in 1914. As Teodorica still retained possession of said property Father Sanz entered into an arrangement with her whereby large numbers of cattle belonging to the defendant corporation were pastured upon said land during a period extending from June 1, 1909, to May 1, 1914.
Under the first cause stated in the complaint in the present action the plaintiff seeks to recover from the defendant corporation the sum of P24,000, as damages for the use and occupation of the land in question by reason of the pasturing of cattle thereon during the period stated.
DECISION OF LOWER COURTS:
1. Trial Court - defendant corporation was liable for damages by reason of the use and occupation of the premises in the manner stated; and fixed the amount to be recovered at P2,497.
plaintiff seeks to recover from the defendant corporation the sum of P500,000, as damages, on the ground that said corporation, for its own selfish purposes, unlawfully induced Teodorica Endencia to refrain from the performance of her contract for the sale of the land
ISSUE: whether the damages allowed should be increased due to the alleged unjustified interference
RULING:
No. Damages assessed are sufficient to compensate the plaintiff for the use and occupation of the land during the whole time it was used.
Article 1902 of the Civil Code declares that any person who by an act or omission, characterized by fault or negligence, causes damage to another shall be liable for the damage so done. Ignoring so much of this article as relates to liability for negligence, we take the rule to be that a person is liable for damage done to another by any culpable act; and by "culpable act" we mean any act which is blameworthy when judged by accepted legal standards.
the stranger cannot become more extensively liable in damages for the nonperformance of the contract than the party in whose behalf he intermeddles. To hold the stranger liable for damages in excess of those that could be recovered against the immediate party to the contract would lead to results at once grotesque and unjust.
Damages recoverable in case of the breach of a contract are two sorts, namely,
(1) the ordinary, natural, and in a sense necessary damage; and
(2) special damages.
The consideration paid for an unperformed promise is an instance of ordinary damage. Special damages are found in case where some external condition, apart from the actual terms to the contract exists or intervenes, as it were, to give a turn to affairs and to increase damage in a way that the promisor, without actual notice of that external condition, could not reasonably be expected to foresee.
The damages in question are special damages which were not within contemplation of the parties when the contract was made, and secondly, because said damages are too remote to be the subject of recovery. This conclusion is also necessarily fatal to the right of the plaintiff to recover such damages from the defendant corporation, for, as already suggested, by advising Teodorica not to perform the contract, said corporation could in no event render itself more extensively liable than the principle in the contract.
To our mind a fair conclusion on this feature of the case is that father Juan Labarga and his associates believed in good faith that the contract cold not be enforced and that Teodorica would be wronged if it should be carried into effect. Any advice or assistance which they may have given was, therefore, prompted by no mean or improper motive.
FACTS:
1. In the year 1902, Teodorica Endencia, an unmarried woman, resident in the Province of Mindoro, executed a contract whereby she obligated herself to convey to Geo. W. Daywalt, a tract of land situated in the barrio of Mangarin, municipality of Bulalacao, now San Jose, in said province. It was agreed that a deed should be executed as soon as the title to the land should be perfected by proceedings in the Court of Land Registration and a Torrens certificate should be produced therefore in the name of Teodorica Endencia.
2. They had several contracts to this effect. The Torrens certificate was in time issued to Teodorica Endencia, but in the course of the proceedings relative to the registration of the land, it was found by official survey that the area of the tract inclosed in the boundaries stated in the contract was about 1.248 hectares of 452 hectares as stated in the contract. In view of this development Teodorica Endencia became reluctant to transfer the whole tract to the purchaser, asserting that she never intended to sell so large an amount of land and that she had been misinformed as to its area.
3. (Supreme Court) This attitude of hers led to litigation in which Daywalt finally succeeded, upon appeal to the Supreme Court, in obtaining a decree for specific performance; and Teodorica Endencia was ordered to convey the entire tract of land to Daywalt pursuant to the contract of October 3, 1908, which contract was declared to be in full force and effect. This decree appears to have become finally effective in the early part of the year 1914.
The defendant, La Corporacion de los Padres Recoletos, is a religious corporation, with its domicile in the city of Manila. The same corporation was at this time also the owner of another estate on the same island immediately adjacent to the land which Teodorica Endencia had sold to Geo. W. Daywalt. When the Torrens certificate was finally issued in 1909 in favor of Teodorica Endencia, she delivered it for safekeeping to the defendant corporation, and it was then taken to Manila where it remained in the custody and under the control of P. Juan Labarga the procurador and chief official of the defendant corporation, until the deliver thereof to the plaintiff was made compulsory by reason of the decree of the Supreme Court in 1914. As Teodorica still retained possession of said property Father Sanz entered into an arrangement with her whereby large numbers of cattle belonging to the defendant corporation were pastured upon said land during a period extending from June 1, 1909, to May 1, 1914.
Under the first cause stated in the complaint in the present action the plaintiff seeks to recover from the defendant corporation the sum of P24,000, as damages for the use and occupation of the land in question by reason of the pasturing of cattle thereon during the period stated.
DECISION OF LOWER COURTS:
1. Trial Court - defendant corporation was liable for damages by reason of the use and occupation of the premises in the manner stated; and fixed the amount to be recovered at P2,497.
plaintiff seeks to recover from the defendant corporation the sum of P500,000, as damages, on the ground that said corporation, for its own selfish purposes, unlawfully induced Teodorica Endencia to refrain from the performance of her contract for the sale of the land
ISSUE: whether the damages allowed should be increased due to the alleged unjustified interference
RULING:
No. Damages assessed are sufficient to compensate the plaintiff for the use and occupation of the land during the whole time it was used.
Article 1902 of the Civil Code declares that any person who by an act or omission, characterized by fault or negligence, causes damage to another shall be liable for the damage so done. Ignoring so much of this article as relates to liability for negligence, we take the rule to be that a person is liable for damage done to another by any culpable act; and by "culpable act" we mean any act which is blameworthy when judged by accepted legal standards.
the stranger cannot become more extensively liable in damages for the nonperformance of the contract than the party in whose behalf he intermeddles. To hold the stranger liable for damages in excess of those that could be recovered against the immediate party to the contract would lead to results at once grotesque and unjust.
Damages recoverable in case of the breach of a contract are two sorts, namely,
(1) the ordinary, natural, and in a sense necessary damage; and
(2) special damages.
The consideration paid for an unperformed promise is an instance of ordinary damage. Special damages are found in case where some external condition, apart from the actual terms to the contract exists or intervenes, as it were, to give a turn to affairs and to increase damage in a way that the promisor, without actual notice of that external condition, could not reasonably be expected to foresee.
The damages in question are special damages which were not within contemplation of the parties when the contract was made, and secondly, because said damages are too remote to be the subject of recovery. This conclusion is also necessarily fatal to the right of the plaintiff to recover such damages from the defendant corporation, for, as already suggested, by advising Teodorica not to perform the contract, said corporation could in no event render itself more extensively liable than the principle in the contract.
To our mind a fair conclusion on this feature of the case is that father Juan Labarga and his associates believed in good faith that the contract cold not be enforced and that Teodorica would be wronged if it should be carried into effect. Any advice or assistance which they may have given was, therefore, prompted by no mean or improper motive.
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