G.R. No. 89880, 6 February 1991, 193 SCRA 603

FACTS:

At about 6:30 in the morning of April 20, 1983, a collision occurred between a gravel and sand truck and a Mazda passenger bus along the national road at Cavite. The front left side portion (barandilla) of the body of the truck sideswiped the left side wall of the passenger bus, ripping off the said wall from the driver’s seat to the last rear seat.Due to the impact, several passengers of the bus were thrown out and died as a result of the injuries they sustained.

During the incident, the cargo truck was driven by defendant Montesiano and owned by defendant Del Pilar; while the passenger bus was driven by defendant Susulin. The vehicle was registered in the name of defendant Novelo but was owned and/or operated as a passenger bus jointly by defendants Magtibay and Serrado, under a franchise, with a line from Cavite to Baclaran, Paranaque, Metro Manila, and vice versa, which Novelo sold to Magtibay on November 8, 1981, and which the latter transferred to Serrado on January 18, 1983.

Immediately before the collision, the cargo truck and the passenger bus were approaching each other, coming from the opposite directions of the highway. While the truck was still about 30 meters away, Susulin, the bus driver, saw the front wheels of the vehicle wiggling. He also observed that the truck was heading towards his lane. Not minding this circumstance due to his belief that the driver of the truck was merely joking, Susulin shifted from fourth to third gear in order to give more power and speed to the bus, which was ascending the inclined part of the road, in order to overtake or pass a Kubota hand tractor being pushed by a person along the shoulder of the highway. While the bus was in the process of overtaking or passing the hand tractor and the truck was approaching the bus, the two vehicles sideswiped each other at each other’s left side. After the impact, the truck skidded towards the other side of the road and landed on a nearby residential lot, hitting a coconut tree and felling it.

The trial court reached the conclusion “that the negligent acts of both drivers contributed to or combined with each other in directly causing the accident which led to the death of the aforementioned persons. It could not be determined from the evidence that it was only the negligent act of one of them which was the proximate cause of the collision. In view of this, the liability of the two drivers for their negligence must be solidary.

Only defendants Federico del Pilar and Edilberto Montesiano, owner and driver, respectively, of the sand and gravel truck have interposed an appeal before the respondent Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals decided the appeal on a different light.

ISSUE:

Whether the respondent court has properly and legally applied the doctrine of “last clear chance” in the present case despite its own finding that appellant cargo truck driver Edilberto Montesiano was admittedly negligent in driving his cargo truck very fast on a descending road and in the presence of the bus driver coming from the opposite direction.

RULING:

The doctrine, stated broadly, is that the negligence of the plaintiff does not preclude a recovery for the negligence of the defendant where it appears that the defendant, by exercising reasonable care and prudence, might have avoided injurious consequences to the plaintiff notwithstanding the plaintiff’s negligence. In other words, the doctrine of last clear chance means that even though a person’s own acts may have placed him in a position of peril, and an injury results, the injured person is entitled to recovery. As the doctrine is usually stated, a person who has the last clear chance or opportunity of avoiding an accident, notwithstanding the negligent acts of his opponent or that of a third person imputed to the opponent is considered in law solely responsible for the consequences of the accident.
The practical import of the doctrine is that a negligent defendant is held liable to a negligent plaintiff, or even to a plaintiff who has been grossly negligent in placing himself in peril, if he, aware of the plaintiffs peril, or according to some authorities, should have been aware of it in the reasonable exercise of due case, had in fact an opportunity later than that of the plaintiff to avoid an accident.

In the recent case of Philippine Rabbit Bus Lines, Inc. v. Intermediate Appellate Court, et al. (G.R. Nos. 66102-04, August 30, 1990), the Court citing the landmark decision held in the case of Anuran, et al. v. Buno, et al. (123 Phil. 1073) ruled that the principle of “last clear chance” applies “in a suit between the owners and drivers of colliding vehicles. It does not arise where a passenger demands responsibility from the carrier to enforce its contractual obligations. For it would be inequitable to exempt the negligent driver of the jeepney and its owners on the ground that the other driver was likewise guilty of negligence.”

The doctrine cannot be extended into the field of joint tortfeasors as a test of whether only one of them should be held liable to the injured person by reason of his discovery of the latter’s peril, and it cannot be invoked as between defendants concurrently negligent. As against third persons, a negligent actor cannot defend by pleading that another had negligently failed to take action which could have avoided the injury.”

The Court is convinced that the respondent Court committed an error of law in applying the doctrine of last clear chance as between the defendants, since the case at bar is not a suit between the owners and drivers of the colliding vehicles but a suit brought by the heirs of the deceased passengers against both owners and drivers of the colliding vehicles. Therefore, the respondent court erred in absolving the owner and driver of the cargo truck from liability.

*Case digest by Karishina Viado, LLB-IV, Andres Bonifacio Law School, SY 2018-2019