Sabena Belgian World Airlines vs. CA
(GR 104685, 14 March 1996)
FACTS:
Private respondent MA. PAULA SAN AGUSTIN was a passenger on board Flight SN 284 of defendant airline originating from Casablanca to Brussels, Belgium on her way back to Manila. She checked in her luggage which contained her valuables all amounting to $4,265.00, for which she was issued Tag No. 71423. She stayed overnight in Brussels and her luggage was left on board Flight SN 284. Upon Arrival in Manila, she learned that her luggage was missing and was advised to accomplish and submit a property Irregularity Report which she submitted and filed on the same day.
Upon follow up, it remained missing; thus, she filed her formal complaint with the office of Ferge Massed, petitioner’s Local Manager, demanding immediate attention.
Two weeks later she was notified that her luggage was found. But unfortunately plaintiff was informed that the luggage was lost for the second time. She demanded payment but the airline refused to settle the claim.
The trial court ruled in favor of Ma. Paula San Agustin. The appellate court affirmed in toto the trial court’s judgment.
Petitioner airline company, in contending that the alleged negligence of private respondent should be considered the primary cause for the loss of her luggage, avers that, despite her awareness that the flight ticket had been confirmed only for Casablanca and Brussels, and that her flight from Brussels to Manila had yet to be confirmed, she did not retrieve the luggage upon arrival in Brussels. Petitioner insists that private respondent, being a seasoned international traveler, must have likewise been familiar with the standard provisions contained in her flight ticket that items of value are required to be hand-carried by the passenger and that the liability of the airline or loss, delay or damage to baggage would be limited, in any event, to only US$20.00 per kilo unless a higher value is declared in advance and corresponding additional charges are paid thereon. At the Casablanca International Airport, private respondent, in checking in her luggage, evidently did not declare its contents or value. Petitioner cites Section 5(c), Article IX, of the General Conditions of Carriage, signed at Warsaw, Poland, on 02 October 1929, as amended by the Hague Protocol of 1955, generally observed by International carriers, stating, among other things, that:
“Passengers shall not include in his checked baggage, and the carrier may refuse to carry as checked baggage, fragile or perishable articles, money, jewelry, precious metals, negotiable papers, securities or other valuables.”
ISSUE:
Whether or not the airline is negligent? Whether respondent’s negligence is the sole and proximate of the loss?
HELD:
Yes.
Fault or negligence consists in the omission of that diligence which is demanded by the nature of an obligation and corresponds with the circumstances of the person, of the time, and of the place. When the source of an obligation is derived from a contract, the mere breach or non-fulfillment of the prestation gives rise to the presumption of fault on the part of the obligor. This rule is not different in the case of common carriers in the carriage of goods which, indeed, are bound to observe not just the due diligence of a good father of a family but that of “extraordinary” care in the vigilance over the goods. The appellate court has aptly observed:
“x x x Art. 1733 of the [Civil] Code provides that from the very nature of their business and by reasons of public policy, common carriers are bound to observe extraordinary diligence in the vigilance over the goods transported by them. This extraordinary responsibility, according to Art. 1736, lasts from the time the goods are unconditionally placed in the possession of and received by the carrier until they are delivered actually or constructively to the consignee or person who has the right to receive them. Art. 1737 states that the common carrier’s duty to observe extraordinary diligence in the vigilance over the goods transported by them ‘remains in full force and effect even when they are temporarily unloaded or stored in transit.’ And Art. 1735 establishes the presumption that if the goods are lost, destroyed or deteriorated, common carriers are presumed to have been at fault or to have acted negligently, unless they prove that they had observed extraordinary diligence as required in Article 1733.
The above rules remain basically unchanged even when the contract is breached by tort although noncontradictory principles on quasi-delict may then be assimilated as also forming part of the governing law. Petitioner is not thus entirely off track when it has likewise raised in its defense the tort doctrine of proximate cause. Unfortunately for petitioner, however, the doctrine cannot, in this particular instance, support its case. Proximate cause is that which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces injury and without which the result would not have occurred.
The above findings, which certainly cannot be said to be without basis, foreclose whatever rights petitioner might have had to the possible limitation of liabilities enjoyed by international air carriers under the Warsaw Convention .
The Warsaw Convention however denies to the carrier availment ‘of the provisions which exclude or limit his liability, if the damage is caused by his wilful misconduct or by such default on his part as, in accordance with the law of the court seized of the case, is considered to be equivalent to wilful misconduct,’ or ‘if the damage is (similarly) caused x x x by any agent of the carrier acting within the scope of his employment.’
The Convention does not thus operate as an exclusive enumeration of the instances of an airline’s liability, or as an absolute limit of the extent of that liability.
( Loss of baggage twice shows gross negligence)
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