La Mallorca and Pampanga Bus Co. vs. de Jesus, Et Al., 17 SCRA 23, May 14, 1966
La Mallorca and Pampanga Bus Co. vs. de Jesus, Et Al., 17 SCRA 23, May 14, 1966
La Mallorca and Pampanga Bus Co. vs. de Jesus, Et Al., 17 SCRA 23, May 14, 1966
MAKALINTAL, J.:
that the petitioners were liable for the accident which was
caused by a blow-out of one of the tires of the bus and in
not considering the same as caso fortuito,” and (2) in
holding petitioners liable for moral damages.
The suit arose by reason of the death of Lolita de Jesus,
20-year old daughter of Valentin de Jesus and wife of
Manolo Tolentino, in a head-on collision between
petitioner’s bus, on which she was a passenger, and a
freight truck traveling in the opposite direction, in a barrio
in Marilao, Bulacan, in the morning of October 8, 1959. The
immediate cause of the collision was the fact that the
driver of the bus Iost control of the wheel when its left front
tire suddenly exploded.
Petitioner maintains that a tire blow-out is a fortuitous
event and gives rise to no liability for negligence, citing the
rulings of the Court of Appeals in Rodriguez vs. Red Line
Transportation Co., CA-G.R. No. 8136, December 29, 1954,
and People vs. Palapad, CA-G.R. No. 18480, June 27, 1958.
These rulings, however, not only are not binding on this
Court but were based on considerations quite different
from those that obtain in the case at bar. The appellate
Court there made no findings of any specific acts of
negligence on the part of the defendants and confined itself
to the question of whether or not a tire blow-out, by itself
alone and without a showing as to the causative factors,
would generate liability. In the present case, the cause of
the blow-out was known. The inner tube of the left front
tire, according to petitioner’s own evidence and as found by
the Court of Appeals, “was pressed between the inner circle
of the left wheel and the rim which had slipped out of the
wheel.” This was, said Court correctly held, a mechanical
defect of the conveyance or a fault in its equipment which
was easily discoverable if the bus had been subjected to a
more thorough or rigid check-up before it took to the road
that morning.
Then again both the trial court and the Court of Appeals
found as a fact that the bus was running quite fast
immediately before the accident. Considering that the tire
which exploded was not new—petitioner describes it as
“hindi masyadong kalbo,” or not so very worn out
25
Judgment affirmed.
NOTES
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