Beruflich Dokumente
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GEO. W. DAYWALT, plaintiff and appellant, vs. LA CORPORACIN DE
LOS PADRES AGUSTINOS RECOLETOS ET AL., defendants and
appellees.
1.CONTRACTS; DAMAGES FOR BREACH; LIABILITY OF THIRD
PARTY.Whatever may be the character of the liability, if any, which a
stranger to a contract may incur by advising or assisting one of the
parties to evade performance, he cannot become more extensively liable
in damages for the nonperformance of the contract than the party in
whose behalf he intermeddles.
2.ID.; ID.; MEASURE OF DAMAGES FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT.
The damages recoverable upon breach of contract are, primarily, the
ordinary, natural and in a sense the necessary damage resulting from
the breach. Other damages, known as special damages, are
recoverable where it appears that the particular conditions which made
such damages a probable consequence of the breach were known to
the delinquent party at the time the contract was made. This proposition
must be understood with the qualification that, if the damages are in the
legal sense remote or speculative, knowledge of the special conditions
which render such damages possible will not make them recoverable.
Special damages of this character cannot be recovered unless made the
subject of special stipulation.
3.ID. ; ID. ; ID. ; DAMAGES FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT FOR SALE
OF LAND.The damages ordinarily recoverable against a vendor for
failure to deliver land which he has contracted to deliver is the value of
the use and occupation of the land for the time during which it is
wrongfully withheld.
APPEAL from a judgment of the Court of First Instance of Manila.
Ostrand, J.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
C. C. Cohn and Thos. D. Aitken for appellant.
Crossfield & O'Brien for appellee.
STREET, J.:
590
PHILIPPINE REPORTS ANNOTATED
Daywalt vs. Corporacin de PP. Agustinos Recoletos.
father Isidoro Sanz, himself a member of the order. Father Sanz had
long been well acquainted with Teodorica Endencia and exerted over
her an influence and ascendency due to his religious character as well
Under the first cause stated in the complaint in the present action the
plaintiff seeks to recover from the defendant corporation the sum of
P24,000, as damages for the use and occupation of the land in question
by reason of the pasturing of cattle thereon during the period stated. The
trial court came to the conclusion that the defendant corporation was
liable for damages by reason of the use and occupation of the premises
in the manner stated; and fixed the amount to be recovered at P2,497.
The plaintiff appealed and has assigned error to this part of the judgment
of the court below, insisting that damages should have been awarded in
a much larger sum and at least to the full extent of P24,000, the amount
claimed in the complaint.
As the def endant did not appeal, the propriety of allowing damages f or
the use and occupation of the land to the extent of P2,497, the mount
awarded, is not now in question; and the only thing here to be
considered, in connection with this branch of the case, is whether the
damages allowed under this head should be increased. The trial court
rightly ignored the fact that the defendant corporation had paid
Teodorica Endencia f or use and occupation of the same land during the
period in question at the rate of P425 per annum, inasmuch as the final
decree of this court in the action for specific performance is conclusive
against her right, and as the defendant corporation had notice of the
rights of the plaintiff under his contract of purchase, it can not be
permitted that the corporation should escape liability in this action by
proving payment of rent to a person other than, the true owner.
With ref erence to the rate at which compensation should be estimated
the trial court came to the following conclusion:
"As to the rate of the compensation, the plaintiff contends that the
defendant corporation maintained at least one thousand head of cattle
on the land and that the pasturage was of the value of forty centavos per
head monthly, or P4,800 annually, for the whole tract. The court can not
accept this view. It is rather improbable that 1,248 hec592
592
594
594
PHILIPPINE REPORTS ANNOTATED
Daywalt vs. Corporacin de PP. Agustinos Recoletos.
Daywalt to get possession of the land and the Torrens certificate of title.
In order to accomplish this end, the plaintiff returned to the Philippine
Islands, communicated his arrangement to the defendant, and made
repeated efforts to secure the registered title for delivery in compliance
with said agreement with Wakefield. Teodorica Endencia seems to have
yielded her consent to the consummation of her contract, but the
Torrens title was then in the possession of Padre Juan Labarga in
Manila, who refused to deliver the document. Teodorica also was in the
end prevailed upon to stand out against the perf ormance of her contract
with the plaintiff with the result that the plaintiff was kept out of
possession until the Wakefield project for the establishment of a large
sugar growing and milling enterprise fell through. In the light of what has
happened in recent years in the sugar industry, we feel justified in saying
that the project above referred to, if carried into effect, must inevitably
have proved a great success.
The determination of the issue presented in this second cause of action
requires a consideration of two points. The first is whether a person who
is not a party to a contract for the sale of land makes himself liable for
damages ,to the vendee, beyond the value of the use and occupation,
by colluding with the vendor and maintaining him in the effort to resist an
action for specific performance. The second is whether the damages
which the plaintiff seeks to recover under this head are too remote and
speculative to be the subject of recovery.
As preliminary to a consideration of the first of these questions, we deem
it well to dispose of the contention that the members of the defendant
corporation, in advising and prompting Teodorica Endencia not to
comply with the contract of sale, were actuated by improper and
malicious motives. The trial court found that this contention was not
596
PHILIPPINE REPORTS ANNOTATED
Daywalt vs. Corporacin de PP. Agustinos Recoletos.
S. B. Wakefield, of San Francisco, it is insisted that the defendant
corporation is liable for the loss consequent upon the failure of the
project outlined in said contract.
In this connection reliance is placed by the plaintiff upon certain
American and English decisions in which it is held that a person who is a
stranger to a contract may, by an unjustifiable interference in the
performance thereof, render himself liable f or the damages consequent
upon non-performance. It is said that the doctrine of these cases was
recognized by this court in Gilchrist vs. Cuddy (29 Phil. Rep., 542); and
we have been earnestly pressed to extend the rule there enunciated to
the situation here presented. Somewhat more than half a century ago
the English Court of the Queen's Bench saw its way clear to permit an
action for damages to be maintained against a stranger to a contract
wrongfully interfering in its performance. The leading case on this
subject is Lumley vs. Gye ([1853], 2 El. & Bl., 216). It there appeared
that the plaintiff, as manager of a theatre, had entered into a contract
with Miss Johanna Wagner, an opera singer, whereby she bound herself
for a period to sing in the plaintiff's theatre and nowhere else. The
defendant, knowing of the existence of this contract, and, as the
declaration alleged, "maliciously intending to injure the plaintiff," enticed
and procured Miss Wagner to leave the plaintiff's employment. It was
held that the plaintiff was entitled to recover damages. The right which
was here recognized had its origin in a rule, long familiar to the courts of
the common law, to the effect that any person who entices a servant
from his employment is liable in damages to the master. The master's
interest in the service rendered by his employee is here considered as a
advice is not disinterested and the persuasion is used for "the indirect
purpose of benefiting the defendant at the expense of the plaintiff," the
intermedler is liable if his advice is taken and the contract broken.
The doctrine embodied in the cases just cited has sometimes been
found useful, in the complicated relations of modern industry, as a
means of restraining the activities of labor unions and industrial societies
when improperly engaged in the promotion of strikes. An illustration of
the application of the doctrine in question in a case of this kind
598
598
PHILIPPINE REPORTS ANNOTATED
Daywalt vs. Corporacin de PP. Agustinos Recoletos.
is found in South Wales Miners Federation vs. Glamorgan Coal Co.
([1905], A. C., 239). It there appeared that certain miners employed in
the plaintiff's collieries, acting under the order of the executive council of
the defendant federation, violated their contract with the plaintiff by
abstaining from work on certain days. The federation and council acted
without any actual malice or ill-will towards the plaintiff, and the only
object of the order in question was that the price of coal might thereby
be kept up, a factor which affected the miner's wage scale. It was held
that no sufficient justification was shown and that the federation was
liable.
In the United States, the rule established in England by Lumley vs. Gye
[supra] and subsequent cases is commonly accepted, though in a few of
the States the broad idea that a stranger to a contract can be held liable
Upon it is rejected, and in these jurisdictions the doctrine, if accepted at
all, is limited to the situation where the contract is strictly for personal
service. (Boyson vs. Thorn, 98 Cal., 578; Chambers & Marshall vs.
Baldwin 91 Ky., 121; Bourlier vs. Macauley, 91 Ky., 135; Glencoe Land
& Gravel Co. vs. Hudson Bros. Com. Co., 138 Mo.; 439.)
600
PHILIPPINE REPORTS ANNOTATED
Daywalt vs. Corporacin de PP. Agustinos Recoletos.
that in order to sustain this liability it is not necessary to resort to any
subtle exegesis relative to the liability of a stranger to a contract for
unlawful interference in the performance thereof. It is enough that
defendant used the property with notice that the plaintiff had a prior and
better right.
Article 1902 of the Civil Code declares that any person who by an act or
omission, characterized by fault or negligence, causes damage to
another shall be liable for the damage so done. Ignoring so much of this
article as relates to liability f or negligence, we take the rule to be that a
person is liable for damage done to another by any culpable act; and by
"culpable act" we mean any act which is blameworthy when judged by
accepted legal standards. The idea thus expressed is undoubtedly broad
enough to include any rational conception of liability for the tortious acts
602
PHILIPPINE REPORTS ANNOTATED
Daywalt vs. Corporacin de PP. Agustinos Recoletos.
to surrender the certificate of title and to place the plaintiff in possession.
It should in the first place be noted that the liability of Teodorica
Endencia for damages resulting from the breach of her contract with
Daywalt was a proper subject for adjudication in the action for specific
performance which Daywalt instituted against her in 1909 and which was
litigated by him to a successful conclusion in this court, but without
obtaining any special adjudication with referrence to damages.
Indemnification for damages resulting from the breach of a contract is a
604
PHILIPPINE REPORTS ANNOTATED
Daywalt vs. Corporacin de PP. Agustinos Recoletos.
to protect himself, in the contingency of the failure of the vendor
promptly to give possession, from the possibility of incurring other
damages than such as are incident to the normal value of the use and
606