De Gillaco vs. Manila Railroad Company

A common carrier is not liable for breach of the contract of safe carriage where its employee kills a passenger from purely personal motive in an assault that was unforeseeable and inevitable and committed outside the scope of the employee's assigned duties toward that passenger.

Cornelia A. De Gillaco and her children sued as widow and heirs of the late Lt. Tomas Gillaco, while the Manila Railroad Company operated as a common carrier by rail on lines including Calamba-Manila and Manila-San Fernando, La Union. The governing law for the April 1946 killing was the old Civil Code of 1889, under which carrier liability was contractual and excused by events that could not be foreseen or, though foreseen, were inevitable.

At about 7:30 a.m. on April 1, 1946, Lt. Tomas Gillaco, husband of plaintiff Cornelia A. De Gillaco, was a passenger in the early morning train of the Manila Railroad Company from Calamba, Laguna to Manila. When the train reached Paco Railroad Station, Emilio Devesa, a train guard assigned to the Manila-San Fernando, La Union line, happened to be in the station waiting for the same train to take him to Tutuban Station, where he was going to report for duty. His tour of duty was to start at 9:00 a.m., two hours after the events in question, and he had no duties to discharge in connection with the Calamba-Manila train.

Devesa bore a long-standing personal grudge against Gillaco dating back to the Japanese occupation. Upon seeing Gillaco inside the train coach at Paco, Devesa shot him with the carbine furnished by the Company for use as train guard. Gillaco died as a result of the wound sustained from the shot.

Thereafter, Devesa was prosecuted and convicted of homicide by final judgment of the Court of Appeals. The widow and children then sought damages from the Company, and the case was submitted to the Court of First Instance of Laguna upon stipulation of the foregoing facts, without proof of negligence on the Company's part beyond the employment and issuance of the firearm.

• Subsidiary Liability ex Delicto: Appellant argued that no liability attached as employer of the killer under Art. 103 of the Revised Penal Code, because the crime was not committed while the slayer was in the actual performance of his ordinary duties and service.
• Contractual Liability and Negligence: Appellant argued that it was not responsible ex contractu, since the complaint did not aver sufficient facts to establish such liability, and no negligence on its part was shown.

• Protection Against Employee Violence: Appellees maintained that a contract of transportation implies protection of passengers against acts of personal violence by the agents or employees of the carrier, rendering the Company liable for the guard's shooting.
• Carrier as Insurer: Appellees, like the lower court, relied on American authorities holding carriers to be insurers of passenger safety against willful assault and intentional ill-treatment by servants, even when impelled by private retribution or personal malice toward the passenger.

• Subsidiary Liability ex Delicto: Whether the Company was subsidiarily liable under Art. 103 of the Revised Penal Code for homicide committed by its train guard.
• Contractual Liability for Unforeseeable Assault: Whether the Company breached its contract of safe carriage and was liable in damages for the unforeseeable killing of a passenger by an employee acting from personal grudge and outside the line of duty.

• Subsidiary Liability ex Delicto: No. No subsidiary liability attached where the killing was not committed in the actual performance of ordinary duties and was not done in line of duty.
• Contractual Liability for Unforeseeable Assault: No. Breach of safe carriage was excused as caso fortuito, the shooting being both unforeseeable and inevitable, with the assailant acting as a stranger-passenger and not as the carrier's representative toward the deceased.

• Subsidiary Liability ex Delicto: When the crime took place, Devesa had no duties to discharge in connection with the transportation of the deceased from Calamba to Manila, being assigned to guard Manila-San Fernando trains and merely awaiting transportation at Paco to Tutuban for a tour beginning two hours later. The killing was therefore not done in line of duty, and Devesa stood in the position of another would-be passenger awaiting transportation rather than an employee discharging duties assumed by the Railroad toward the deceased.
• Contractual Liability for Unforeseeable Assault: While the contract of carriage obligates safe transport and protection from personal violence by the carrier or its agents, responsibility under the old Civil Code extended only to what could be foreseen or avoided through required care and diligence. The Company had no means to ascertain that the two would meet and could not reasonably foresee every personal rancor between its many employees and thousands of eventual passengers, so requiring guard against all such misunderstandings would demand diligence beyond human care and foresight. The Civil Code of 1889 did not impose absolute insurer liability, and broader liability for a servant's private misconduct applies only where the servant was clothed with delegated authority to execute the carrier's undertaking toward that passenger, which was absent here.

• Contract of safe carriage — The source of a carrier's liability for injury to a passenger is the contract of carriage, by which the carrier binds itself to carry the passenger safely and securely to destination and is liable in damages upon failure unless excused by fortuitous event. Applied to hold that the Company's obligation was contractual, but excused because the guard's unforeseeable private assault constituted caso fortuito.
• Caso fortuito under the old Civil Code — No liability attaches for events which could not be foreseen or which, even if foreseen, were inevitable, except where the law expressly provides otherwise or the obligation itself imposes such liability. Applied to characterize the grudge-motivated shooting as both unforeseeable and inevitable, thereby excusing the resulting breach of safe carriage.
• Carrier not an insurer under the Civil Code of 1889 — Philippine law at the time did not recognize absolute insurer liability of a carrier for willful assaults by servants motivated by private retribution. Applied to reject American authorities cited by the lower court and appellees that would impose liability regardless of personal malice.
• Line-of-duty limitation for private misconduct — A carrier answers for a servant's assault committed in the servant's own interest only where the servant was placed to represent the carrier in discharging a duty owed to that passenger; otherwise ordinary respondeat superior principles do not extend liability. Applied to deny liability because Devesa, assigned to another line and off duty, never came within the sphere of duty toward Calamba-Manila passengers.

• "No one shall be liable for events which could not be foreseen or which, even if foreseen, were inevitable, with the exception of the cases in which the law expressly provides otherwise and those in which the obligation itself imposes such liability." — States the statutory excuse under article 1105 of the Civil Code that controls contractual liability for breach of safe carriage.
• "But under the law of the case, this responsibility extends only to those that the carrier could foresee or avoid through the exercise of the degree of car and diligence required of it." — Defines the limited scope of the carrier's duty to protect passengers from violence by agents or employees.
• "The shooting in question was therefore "caso fortuito" within the definition of article 105 of the old Civil Code, being both unforeseeable and inevitable under the given circumstances; and pursuant to established doctrine, the resulting breach of appellant's contract of safe carriage with the late Tomas Gillaco was excused thereby." — Articulates the ratio decidendi excusing the carrier from damages.

• Lasam vs. Smith, 45 Phil., 657 — Followed as controlling on the contractual source of carrier liability and the Art. 1105 excuse for unforeseeable and inevitable failure to carry safely.
• Rakes vs. Atlantic, Gulf & Pacific Co., 7 Phil., 359; Cangco vs. Manila Railroad Co., 38 Phil., 768; Manila Railroad vs. Compañia Transatlantica and Atlantic, Gulf & Pacific Co., 38 Phil., 875; De Guia vs. Manila Electric Railroad & Light Co., 40 Phil., 706 — Cited as establishing the distinction between extra-contractual and contractual liability and that the source of a passenger claim is the contract of carriage.
• Government vs. Inchausti & Co., 40 Phil., 219; Oriental Comm. Co. vs. Naviera Filipina, 38 Off. Gaz., 1020 — Cited to show that insurer liability of a carrier was not recognized in this jurisdiction under the old Code.
• Houston & T. C. R. Co. vs. Bush, 32 LRA (NS), p. 1205 — Adopted as persuasive authority that broader carrier liability for a servant's private assault requires delegation to represent the carrier toward that passenger and does not extend to employees with no duty toward the passenger's train or station.

• Article 1105, Old Civil Code — Provides that no one is liable for unforeseeable or inevitable events except as expressly provided by law or assumed by the obligation; applied to excuse the carrier's failure to deliver the passenger safely.
• Article 105, Old Civil Code — Invoked as defining caso fortuito; applied to classify the unforeseeable and inevitable grudge killing as fortuitous, excusing breach.
• Article 103, Revised Penal Code — Governs subsidiary civil liability of employers ex delicto; appellant invoked it to argue non-liability because the guard was not in actual performance of ordinary duties, a position sustained by the finding that the killing was outside the line of duty.

Bengzon, Padilla, Montemayor, Reyes, A., Jugo, Bautista Angelo, and Concepcion, JJ., concurred, with no separate concurring reasoning set forth in the text.