JARCO MARKETING CORPORATION, LEONARDO KONG, JOSE TIOPE and ELISA PANELO, petitioners, vs. HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS, CONRADO C. AGUILAR and CRISELDA R. AGUILAR, respondents.

FACTS:

Petitioner Jarco Marketing Corporation is the owner of Syvel’s Department Store, Makati City.  Petitioners Leonardo Kong, Jose Tiope and Elisa Panelo are the store’s branch manager, operations manager, and supervisor, respectively.  Private respondents are spouses and the parents of Zhieneth Aguilar (ZHIENETH) who died due to the negligence of the petitioners.

Criselda together with her child Zhieneth, went to the counter to pay for what they had bought in the center. When Criselda was signing her credit card slip at the payment and verification counter, she let go of the hand of Zhieneth which led the latter to come closer to a gift wrapping counter/structure  which fell upon her without doing anything. Due to her young age, she was not able to survive such incident which caused her death. Thus her parents, private respondents herein filed a case against the petitioners for being negligent of not nailing the said counter to avoid from falling.The counter was shaped like an inverted “L” with a top wider than the base.  It was top heavy and the weight of the upper portion was neither evenly distributed nor supported by its narrow base.  Thus, the counter was defective, unstable and dangerous; a downward pressure on the overhanging portion or a push from the front could cause the counter to fall.

ISSUES: :  (1) whether the death of ZHIENETH was accidental or attributable to negligence; and (2) in case of a finding of negligence, whether the same was attributable to private respondents for maintaining a defective counter or to CRISELDA and ZHIENETH for failing to exercise due and reasonable care while inside the store premises.

HELD:  

We rule that the tragedy which befell ZHIENETH was no accident and that ZHIENETH’s death could only be attributed to negligence.

An accident pertains to an unforeseen event in which no fault or negligence attaches to the defendant. It is “a fortuitous circumstance, event or happening; an event happening without any human agency, or if happening wholly or partly through human agency, an event which under the circumstances is unusual or unexpected by the person to whom it happens.”

On the other hand, negligence is the omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided by those considerations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs, would do, or the doing of something which a prudent and reasonable man would not do. Negligence is “the failure to observe, for the protection of the interest of another person, that degree of care, precaution and vigilance which the circumstances justly demand, whereby such other person suffers injury.”

Accident and negligence are intrinsically contradictory; one cannot exist with the other.  Accident occurs when the person concerned is exercising ordinary care, which is not caused by fault of any person and which could not have been prevented by any means suggested by common prudence.

Thus, as confronted by the situation petitioners miserably failed to discharge the due diligence required of a good father of a family.