NAPOCOR vs CA

GR 103442-45 May 21, 1993

FACTS:

This is a consolidated case comprising of four separate complaints., filed against NPC and a particular Chavez.

Plaintiffs filed a complaint against respondent for the lost of lives and destruction of properties due to the negligence of the latter in releasing water from Angat dam during the typhoon “Kading”

Benjamin Chavez, being the supervisor at that time of a multi-purpose hydroelectric plant in the Angat River at Hilltop, Norzagaray, Bulacan, failed to exercise due diligence in monitoring the water level at the dam.

NPC’s allegations were as follows:

1) the NPC exercised due care, diligence and prudence in the operation and maintenance of the hydroelectric plant;

2) the NPC exercised the diligence of a good father in the selection of its employees; 3) written notices were sent to the different municipalities of Bulacan warning the residents therein about the impending release of a large volume of water with the onset of typhoon "Kading" and advise them to take the necessary precautions;

4) the water released during the typhoon was needed to prevent the collapse of the dam and avoid greater damage to people and property;

5) in spite of the precautions undertaken and the diligence exercised, they could still not contain or control the flood that resulted and;

6) the damages incurred by the private respondents were caused by a fortuitous event or force majeure and are in the nature and character of damnum absque injuria. By way of special affirmative defense, the defendants averred that the NPC cannot be sued because it performs a purely governmental function.

The trial court dismissed the complaints as against the NPC on the ground that the provision of its charter allowing it to sue and be sued does not contemplate actions based on tort. Its decision on 30 April 1990 dismissing the complaints "for lack of sufficient and credible evidence."

Court of Appeals reversed the appealed decision and awarded damages in favor of the private respondents. Based on the findings that  From the mass of evidence extant in the record, We are convinced, and so hold that the flash flood on October 27, 1978, was caused not by rain waters (sic), but by stored waters (sic) suddenly and simultaneously released from the Angat Dam by defendants-appellees, particularly from midnight of October 26, 1978 up to the morning hours of October 27, 1978.

ISSUE:

Whether or not respondent is negligent?

Whether or not the notices of warning were insufficient?

Whether or not The damages suffered was not DAMNUM ABSQUE INJURIA?

HELD:

We declared therein that the proximate cause of the loss and damage sustained by the plaintiffs therein — who were similarly situated as the private respondents herein — was the negligence of the petitioners, and that the 24 October 1978 "early warning notice" supposedly sent to the affected municipalities, the same notice involved in the case at bar, was insufficient.

The petitioners were guilty of "patent gross and evident lack of foresight, imprudence and negligence in the management and operation of Angat Dam," and that "the extent of the opening of the spillways, and the magnitude of the water released, are all but products of defendants-appellees' headlessness, slovenliness, and carelessness."

To exempt the obligor from liability under Article 1174 of the Civil Code, for a breach of an obligation due to an "act of God," the following must concur: (a) the cause of the breach of the obligation must be independent of the will of the debtor; (b) the event must be either unforseeable or unavoidable; (c) the event must be such as to render it impossible for the debtor to fulfill his obligation in a moral manner; and (d) the debtor must be free from any participation in, or aggravation of the injury to the creditor. (Vasquez v. Court of Appeals, 138 SCRA 553; Estrada v. Consolacion, 71 SCRA 423; Austria v. Court of Appeals, 39 SCRA 527; Republic of the Phil. v. Luzon Stevedoring Corp., 21 SCRA 279; Lasam v. Smith, 45 Phil. 657).

Accordingly, petitioners cannot be heard to invoke the act of God or force majeure to escape liability for the loss or damage sustained by private respondents since they, the petitioners, were guilty of negligence. The event then was not occasioned exclusively by an act of God or force majeure; a human factor — negligence or imprudence — had intervened. The effect then of the force majeure in question may be deemed to have, even if only partly, resulted from the participation of man. Thus, the whole occurrence was thereby humanized, as it were, and removed from the laws applicable to acts of God.