G.R. No. L-10126 October 22, 1957 SALUD VILLANUEVA VDA. DE BATACLAN and the minors NORMA, LUZVIMINDA, ELENITA, OSCAR and ALFREDO BATACLAN, represented by their Natural guardian, SALUD VILLANUEVA VDA. DE BATACLAN, plaintiffs-appellants, vs. MARIANO MEDINA, defendant-appellant
FACTS:
Shortly after
midnight, on September 13, 1952 bus no. 30 of the Medina Transportation,
operated by its owner defendant Mariano Medina under a certificate of public
convenience, left the town of Amadeo, Cavite, on its way to Pasay City, driven
by its regular chauffeur, Conrado Saylon. At about 2:00 o'clock that same
morning, while the bus was running within the jurisdiction of Imus, Cavite, one
of the front tires burst and the vehicle began to zig-zag until it fell into a
canal or ditch on the right side of the road and turned turtle. Some of the
passengers managed to leave the bus the best way they could, others had to be
helped or pulled out, while the three passengers seated beside the driver,
named Bataclan, Lara and the Visayan and the woman behind them named Natalia
Villanueva, could not get out of the overturned bus. After half an hour, came
about ten men, one of them carrying a lighted torch made of bamboo with a wick
on one end, evidently fueled with petroleum. These men presumably approach the
overturned bus, and almost immediately, a fierce fire started, burning and all
but consuming the bus, including the four passengers trapped inside it. It
would appear that as the bus overturned, gasoline began to leak and escape from
the gasoline tank on the side of the chassis, spreading over and permeating the
body of the bus and the ground under and around it, and that the lighted torch
brought by one of the men who answered the call for help set it on fire. Hence,
the petitioners sought for the recovery of compensatory, moral and exemplary
damages and attorney’s fees against the respondent.
ISSUE: Whether or
not the respondent is liable.
HELD: YES.
.
. . 'that cause, which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any
efficient intervening cause, produces the injury, and without which the result
would not have occurred.' And more comprehensively, 'the proximate legal cause
is that acting first and producing the injury, either immediately or by setting
other events in motion, all constituting a natural and continuous chain of
events, each having a close causal connection with its immediate predecessor,
the final event in the chain immediately effecting the injury as a natural and
probable result of the cause which first acted, under such circumstances that
the person responsible for the first event should, as an ordinary prudent and intelligent
person, have reasonable ground to expect at the moment of his act or default
that an injury to some person might probably result therefrom.
The
proximate cause in the case at bar was the overturning of the bus, this for the
reason that when the vehicle turned not only on its side but completely on its
back, the leaking of the gasoline from the tank was not unnatural or
unexpected; that the coming of the men with a lighted torch was in response to
the call for help, made not only by the passengers, but most probably, by the
driver and the conductor themselves, and that because it was dark (about 2:30
in the morning), the rescuers had to carry a light with them, and coming as
they did from a rural area where lanterns and flashlights were not available.
The burning of the bus can also in part be attributed to the negligence of the
carrier, through is driver and its conductor because none of them have
cautioned or taken steps, with the circumstances present, to warn the rescuers
not to bring the lighted torch too near the bus.
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