SECOND DIVISION
[ G.R. No. 170631. February 10, 2016 ]
CARAVAN TRAVEL AND TOURS INTERNATIONAL, INC., PETITIONER, VS. ERMILINDA R. ABEJAR, RESPONDENT.
SEPARATE CONCURRING OPINION
BRION, J.:
I concur with the ponencia's conclusions that, first, Ermilinda Abejar (Abejar) is a real party in interest and, second, Caravan Travel and Tours International, Inc. (Caravan) is vicariously liable for damages as Jimmy Bautista (Bautista)'s employer.
I write this Opinion (1) to express my reservation on the reasoning employed in resolving the first issue, and (2) to reflect my view on the interplay between Articles 2176 and 2180 of the Civil Code and the registered owner rule.1aшphi1
In resolving the first issue, the ponencia reasoned out that Abejar is a real party in interest because she exercised substitute parental authority over the victim, Jesmariane Reyes (Reyes).1 Having acted as a parent to Reyes, Abejar suffered actual and personal loss due to her death.2 Furthermore, Abejar was capacitated to do what Reyes' actual parents would have been capacitated to do.3 In a number of cases, the Court allowed natural parents to recover damages for the death of their children.4
I disagree with the ponencia's reasoning. In my view, Abejar is a real party in interest, not because she exercised substitute parental authority over Reyes, but because she has an interest in claiming actual and exemplary damages from Caravan.
Parental authority has no bearing on one's status as a real party in interest in a quasi-delict case. Parental authority refers to the rights and obligations which parents have over their children's person and property until their majority age.5 This authority is granted to parents to facilitate the performance of their duties to their children.6 If a child has no parents, grandparents, or siblings, the child's actual custodian shall exercise substitute parental authority over him or her.7 Moreover, the child's emancipation terminates parental authority.8
On the other hand, real party in interest refers to the person who is entitled to the avails of the suit.9 He or she stands to be benefited or injured by the judgment.10 The interest involved must be personal and not based on another person's rights.11
The fact that Abejar exercised substitute parental authority over Reyes does not translate to Abejar's legal interest to recover damages for Reyes' death. Furthermore, Abejar's parental authority over Reyes ceased when the latter turned eighteen. Thus, at the time of her death, Reyes was no longer under Abejar's parental authority.
Nevertheless, I agree that Abejar is a real party in interest, because she incurred actual damages when she paid for Reyes' funeral expenses. Courts may also impose exemplary damages, in addition to compensatory damages, if the defendant acted with gross negligence.12 In the present case, Bautista's act of leaving Reyes rather than bringing her to a hospital amounts to gross negligence.13 Thus, Abejar may recover these damages from Caravan.
On the second point, I discuss the registered owner rule in relation to Articles 2180 and 2176 of the Civil Code. To stress, I agree that Caravan is directly and primarily liable for damages as Bautista's employer and as the van's registered owner.
As early as 1957, this Court held in Erezo v. Jepte14 that a vehicle's registered owner is primarily responsible for the damage caused to another person. The Revised Motor Vehicle Law15 requires vehicles to be registered before they may be used in any public highway. The Court stressed that the main purpose of the registration is to identify the owner so that if any accident happens or damage is caused on the public highways, responsibility can be fixed on a definite individual - the registered owner.16
In Filcar Transport Services v. Espinas,17 the Court had the opportunity to discuss the interplay between Articles 2176 and 2180 of the Civil Code and the registered owner rule.1aшphi1 The Court ruled that the registered owner of a vehicle is deemed the employer of the vehicle's driver.18 Thus, the vehicle's registered owner is vicariously liable for the driver's negligent acts pursuant to Articles 2176 and Article 2180 of the Civil Code.19 The vicarious liability remains with the registered owner even when the vehicle had been sold to another person before the accident but the registration has not yet been transferred.20 The Court emphasized in R. Transport Corporation v. Yu21 that the employer's liability for the negligent acts of its subordinate is direct and primary.
Based on the foregoing, I concur with the ponencia's results.
Footnotes
1 Reyes' parents and paternal grandparents are dead. The whereabouts of her maternal grandparents are unknown. There is no record that she has brothers or sisters. Abejar supported Reyes' education, provided her personal needs, and treated her as her own daughter. Rollo, pp. 719, 187-191, 605, 760.
2 Ponencia, p. 7.
3 Ibid.
4 Id. at 7-9.
5 Arturo Tolentino, Civil Code of the Philippines, Vol. 1. p. 603 (1990).
6 Ibid.
7 FAMILY CODE, Article 216 (3).
8 Id., Article 228 (3).
9 Oscar M. Herrera, Remedial Law, Vol. I, p. 515 (2007).
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 CIVIL CODE, Articles 2229 and 2231.
13 Rollo, pp. 31 and 953.
14 102 Phil. 103, 107 (1957).
15 Act No. 3992, as amended, Chapter II, Art. 1, Sec. 5(a).
16 Erezo v Jepte,supra note 14, at 108.
17 G.R. No. 174156, June 20, 2012, 674 SCRA 117.
18 Id. at 128-129.
19 Ibid.
20 Mendoza v. Gomez, G.R. No. 160110, June 18, 2014, 726 SCRA 505, 519-521.
21 G.R. No. 174161, February 18, 2015.
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