Pal V Savillo, GR No. 149547 Facts

PAL v SAVILLO, GR NO.
149547
FACTS:
Simplicio Griño (private respondent) was invited to participate in the 1993 ASEAN Seniors Annual
Golf Tournament held in Jakarta, Indonesia. He and several companions decided to purchase their
respective passenger tickets from PAL with the following points of passage: MANILA-SINGAPORE-
JAKARTA-SINGAPORE-MANILA. Private respondent and his companions were made to understand
by PAL that its plane would take them from Manila to Singapore, while Singapore Airlines would take
them from Singapore to Jakarta.
On 3 October 1993, private respondent and his companions took the PAL flight to Singapore. Upon
their arrival, Singapore Airlines rejected the tickets of private respondent and his group because they
were not endorsed by PAL. It was explained to them that if Singapore Airlines honored the tickets
without PAL’s endorsement, PAL would not pay Singapore Airlines for their passage. Private
respondent tried to contact PAL’s office at the airport, only to find out that it was closed.
Upon his return to the Philippines, private respondent brought the matter to the attention of PAL. He
sent a demand letter to PAL and another to Singapore Airlines. However, both airlines disowned
liability and blamed each other for the fiasco. Private respondent then filed a Complaint for Damages
before the RTC, seeking compensation for moral damages and attorney’s fees.
PAL claimed that the cause of action has already prescribed invoking the Warsaw Convention
providing for a two-year prescriptive period.
ISSUE: Whether or not the complaint filed by Griño beyond the two-year period provided under the
Warsaw Convention is already barred by prescription
RULING:
NO. In determining whether PAL’s Motion to Dismiss should have been granted by the trial court, it
must be ascertained if all the claims made by the private respondent in his Complaint are covered by
the Warsaw Convention, which effectively bars all claims made outside the two-year prescription
period provided under Article 29 thereof. If the Warsaw Convention covers all of private respondent’s
claims, then the cause of action has already prescribed and should therefore be dismissed. On the
other hand, if some, if not all, of respondent’s claims are outside the coverage of the Warsaw
Convention, the RTC may still proceed to hear the case.
Article 19 of the Warsaw Convention provides for liability on the part of a carrier for "damages
occasioned by delay in the transportation by air of passengers, baggage or goods." Article 24
excludes other remedies by further providing that "(1) in the cases covered by articles 18 and 19, any
action for damages, however founded, can only be brought subject to the conditions and limits set out
in this convention." Therefore, a claim covered by the Warsaw Convention can no longer be
recovered under local law, if the statute of limitations of two years has already lapsed.
Nevertheless, this Court notes that jurisprudence in the Philippines and the United States also
recognizes that the Warsaw Convention does not "exclusively regulate" the relationship between
passenger and carrier on an international flight. This Court finds that the present case is substantially
similar to cases in which the damages sought were considered to be outside the coverage of the
Warsaw Convention.
The instant case is comparable to the case of Lathigra v. British Airways.

In Lathigra, it was held that the airlines’ negligent act of reconfirming the passenger’s reservation
days before departure and failing to inform the latter that the flight had already been discontinued is
not among the acts covered by the Warsaw Convention, since the alleged negligence did not occur
during the performance of the contract of carriage but, rather, days before the scheduled flight.
In the case at hand, Singapore Airlines barred private respondent from boarding the Singapore
Airlines flight because PAL allegedly failed to endorse the tickets of private respondent and his
companions, despite PAL’s assurances to respondent that Singapore Airlines had already confirmed
their passage. While this fact still needs to be heard and established by adequate proof before the
RTC, an action based on these allegations will not fall under the Warsaw Convention, since the
purported negligence on the part of PAL did not occur during the performance of the contract of
carriage but days before the scheduled flight. Thus, the present action cannot be dismissed based on
the statute of limitations provided under Article 29 of the Warsaw Convention.
Had the present case merely consisted of claims incidental to the airlines’ delay in transporting their
passengers, the private respondent’s Complaint would have been time-barred under Article 29 of the
Warsaw Convention. However, the present case involves a special species of injury resulting from the
failure of PAL and/or Singapore Airlines to transport private respondent from Singapore to Jakarta –
the profound distress, fear, anxiety and humiliation that private respondent experienced when,
despite PAL’s earlier assurance that Singapore Airlines confirmed his passage, he was prevented
from boarding the plane and he faced the daunting possibility that he would be stranded in Singapore
Airport because the PAL office was already closed.

Pal V Savillo, GR No. 149547 Facts

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Pal V Savillo, GR No. 149547 Facts

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PAL v SAVILLO, GR NO.

The instant case is comparable to the case of Lathigra v. British Airways.

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