Serious breach of contract

A contract by the airline companies to transport passengers is different in kind and degree from any contractual relation. It invites the travelling public to avail themselves of the comforts and advantages it offers and the right to be treated by the carrier’s employees with kindness, respect, courtesy and due consideration no matter how lowly is their status in life. So if this is violated, passengers can file an action for damages against the carrier. This is what happened to Juan in this case.

Juan is an automotive electrician who applied and was contracted for employment in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia by a local recruitment agency (PPOR) at an annual salary of P60,000 for a period of one year renewable every year for five years. He was supposed to start working within two weeks, so PPOR coordinated with a foreign airlines (KAL) doing business here, to transport him along with 30 other contract workers on Jan. 8, 1990. But of those scheduled to leave only 21 were confirmed and nine were wait-listed passengers including Juan. Later on, PPOR was informed that only one or two seats will be available. So, it gave the first seat to Pedro, a returning supervisor of the hiring company in Saudi Arabia, and the other seat was won by Juan in a lottery.

On the day of departure, the two unclaimed seats were thus given to Juan and Pedro. Juan was allowed to check in with one suitcase and one shoulder bag at KAL’s check-in counter. He passed through the Customs and the Immigration sections for routine check-up and was cleared for departure as Passenger No. 177 of KAL flight DE 124. Together with the other passengers, he rode in a shuttle bus and proceeded to the ramp of the aircraft for boarding. However, when he was at the third or fourth rang of the stairs, a KAL officer pointed to him and shouted “Down, Down!” He was thus barred from taking the flight.

When he later asked for another booking, a KAL employee treated him rudely and arrogantly as a “patay gutom na contract worker fighting KAL” and his ticket was even canceled. Consequently, he was unable to report for his work in Saudi Arabia within the stipulated two-week period and so lost his employment.

So Juan sued KAL for actual/compensatory damages representing his lost earning for five years as well as moral and exemplary damages and attorney’s fees. After trial, the RTC awarded only the actual damages representing his lost salary for five years plus attorney’s fee but denied his claim for moral and exemplary damages. This decision was modified by the Court of Appeals on appeal by both parties. The CA reduced the actual damages to P60,000 corresponding to his salary for one year only but awarded Juan P100,000 by way of moral and exemplary damages at six percent per annum from the date of filing of the complaint until fully paid.

Both KAL and Juan appealed this decision to the Supreme Court. KAL insisted that it did not bump off Juan and breached its contract with him as his stand by passenger status was not changed to confirmed status when his name was entered in the passenger manifest because he did not have a boarding pass yet. Juan on the other hand contended that he should have been awarded actual damages representing his lost salary for five years and bigger amount of moral and exemplary damages.

The Supreme Court however affirmed the CA decision. It ruled that the status of Juan as stand-by passenger was changed to that of confirmed passenger when his name was entered in the passenger manifest. His clearance through immigration and customs clearly shows that he had indeed been confirmed as a passenger of KAL in that flight. The contract of carriage between him and KAL had already been perfected when he was summarily and insolently prevented from boarding the aircraft. KAL thus committed a breach of contract of carriage between them when it failed to bring Juan to his destination. This breach was aggravated when a KAL officer rudely shouted at him while boarding the plane and when he was arrogantly and rudely treated as he asked for another booking.

On the other hand Juan’s claim of bigger actual, moral and exemplary damages is not acceptable either. His contract of employment is only for one foreign arrivals and departures.

Forewarned is forearmed. When tourism officials learn the modus operandi of the insatiable Customs men, they’d know how to prevent recurrence. There’s word that at the international airports to this day some Customs men board newly landed foreign airlines and head straight for the business-class pantry to demand untouched leftovers. Installing CCTVs would help pinpoint them; they carry huge loot bags.

Hong Kong and Singapore cruise companies reportedly are in discussions with tourism authorities to map out possible destinations. One outfit intends to operate out of Manila, and sail to Laoag, Kaohsiung in Taiwan, Hong Kong, then back, The STAR’s Iris Gonzales wrote last Monday. Foreign and domestic tourists would have countless sights to see in Manila’s Intramuros and Malate districts, and in surrounding provinces. Laoag has the La Paz sand dunes, and is the jump-off to cultural heritage structures like the church in Paoay and the lighthouse in Burgos towns. year renewable for five years. While he intends to renew it, such renewal will still be subject to approval by his foreign employer. Actual damages, the loss of earnings for the renewal of the contract is at most speculative. So Juan is only entitled to P60,000 representing his lost salary for one year.

The amount of moral and exemplary damages depends upon the discretion of the court based on circumstances of each case. Damages are not intended to enrich the complainant at the expense of the defendant. They should not be palpably and scandalously excessive. The records of this case show that the injury suffered by Juan is not so serious and extensive as to warrant a bigger amount than P100,000 which is reasonable and realistic (Korean Airlines Co. Ltd. vs. Court of Appeals G.R. 113842, August 3, 1994, 224, SCRA 717).

Email: attyjosesison@gmail.com take choppers of US military advisers to evacuate the corpses at one of two clash sites at dusk of Jan. 25, 2015?

Gen. Getulio Napeñas, the commando chief whom then-President Noynoy Aquino blamed for the fiasco, already gave part of the answer to investigators. “The Armed Forces is compromised,” swore the head of the PNP-Special Action Force then. He was referring to the Army division head in Maguindanao, who from dawn to dusk had rejected his pleas for artillery cover to extricate the beleaguered commandos.

This column also quoted other police generals then as saying that some Air Force bases too were compromised. Well before the battle of Mamasapano a police general’s contingent was ambushed by the separatists. At once he radioed his military academy ex-classmates in Davao to help them escape with fly-bys. Two aircraft swiftly were dispatched, but recalled by superiors before aiding the policemen. Another time in Basilan the police secretly requested the air command in nearby Zamboanga to bomb the camp of kidnapper-terrorists. Fifteen minutes before the aircraft took off, the terrorists, apparently alerted, abandoned their base. In Awang, Cotabato, whenever military aircraft take off for bombing runs, separatists clear out of their bases nearby. The police surmise that the enemy is alerted either by infiltrators among the civilian employees, or by spies in surrounding communities who have studied the air tactics.

Perhaps President Duterte should ask too if the military already has fixed the problem. Otherwise the air assets forever will be useless.

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