June 30, 1975
Ponente: Barredo, J.
FACTS:
·
In 1963, Francisco Ortigas, Jr. booked an
around-the-world ticket that would take him from Manila to HK, cities in the
US, Europe, Asia, Far East, and then back to Manila. Issued by Lufthansa, his
Pan American ticket involved first class flights in all the legs of his
journey. He left Manila on October 12, 1963 as scheduled. (Note: As per his
doctor's advice, Ortigas could only fly first class because he was nursing a
heart ailment.)
·
In New York, he decided to leave out some
cities included in his original itinerary, to be in HK on November 19, 1963,
for several appointments he had there. So he went to the Trans World Airlines
(TWA) and had his Pan American ticket changed. His TWA ticket was also first
class for the entire trip from NY to several European cities, including Rome,
and thence to the Far East, with Manila also as the place of destination.
·
Ortigas arrived in Rome on November 16, 1963.
There, he went to the office of Alitalia to book a November 18 flight bound for
HK so that he would arrive in time for his appointments the next day. He was
advised that Alitalia did not have a flight for HK on the day requested, but
that Lufthansa did. Ortigas booked a first class seat on the Lufthansa flight
and had his ticket checked, confirmed, and validated as shown by the word
"O.K." on the sticker.
·
On the day of his flight, Ortigas proceeded to
the counter in charge of the Lufthansa passengers. His ticket was confirmed and
validated. After dropping his luggage and paying embarkation tax, he rode a bus
along with other passengers en route to the airport.
·
At the airport, Ortigas handed over his ticket
to the man behind the Lufthansa counter, who told him everything was all
right. It was at that point when he
heard his name called via PA speakers. A Lufthansa employee then asked for his
passport and other papers and, after examining his passport, where his Filipino
nationality appears, said he could not board the plane that day because his
seat would be given to a Belgian. Ortigas asked the man why he was doing that
to him when his ticket was confirmed and validated first class. The Lufthansa
employee replied he was sorry but Ortigas could not fly.
·
This argument occurred in the presence of
other passengers. Ortigas felt embarrassed and humiliated because the Lufthansa
employee was shouting at him and treating him rudely. Because of stress and of
fear of aggravating his heart condition, Ortigas had to take nitroglycerine to
calm himself down.
·
Ortigas made another request that the employee
call other airlines to inquire if they had flights to HK that day, but the
employee once more turned down the plea and insisted that Ortigas travel
economy, with the promise that he will be transferred to first class in Cairo
and onward to HK.
·
Ortigas said he not satisfied with the
arrangement but was constrained to agree to it because he had to be in HK the
next day, his luggage was in all probability already inside the plane, he was
not certain he could still secure a hotel reservation, and he was assured he
would be given first class passage from Cairo onward.
ROME-CAIRO
·
Upon arrival in Cairo, Ortigas requested the
Lufthansa agent to transfer him to first class but the agent said he could not
and that he did not receive any communication from Rome to that effect. Ortigas
also requested the man to find out if there were other airlines having planes
leaving that day but his request was likewise denied. The man, however,
promised that at Dharham, Ortigas will be transferred to first class. Ortigas
had no alternative but to continue traveling as before but he did so again
under protest.
CAIRO-DHARAM
·
At Dharham, Ortigas once more requested a
transfer to first class but was also told by the Lufthansa agent that he had
not received any communication about the change and the request could not be
granted. The plaintiff had to travel perforce economy from Dharham, on the
promise that he would be given first class accommodation upon arrival in
Calcutta.
DHARAM-CALCUTTA
·
In Calcutta, Ortigas once again requested a
transfer or that he be assisted in booking passage on other planes but was also
refused.
CALCUTTA-BANGKOK
·
It was only in Bangkok when the chief steward
asked Ortigas if he wanted to move over to first class. But having been already
embarrassed and humiliated and the trip to HK being only three hours, Ortigas
declined the offer as a sign of protest.
BANGKOK-HONG KONG
·
Arriving in HK, Ortigas protested against the
treatment given him but was told by the Lufthansa office he had to file his
protest in Manila, it being the point of destination.
HK-MANILA
·
In Manila, Ortigas wrote two letters addressed
to Lufthansa, but the company did not reply to either of them, prompting him to
institute an action for damages.
·
TRIAL COURT: For its failure to comply with its
obligation to give first class accommodation to Ortigas, aggravated by its
patent racial discrimnation against a Filipino passenger and the improper
conduct of its employees, Lufthansa is liable to pay damages in favor of
Ortigas in the amount of P100,000 as moral damages, P30,000 as exemplary
damages, and P20,000 as attorney's fees.
RULING:
Whether
Lufthansa acted in bad faith on account of its failure to provide Ortigas with
first class seats during the subject Rome-HK flight. – YES.
·
Following is a list of issues discussed in the
case along with the defenses interposed by Lufthansa and the corresponding
rulings of the SC:
RESERVED OR WAITLISTED
·
Lufthansa: The Alitalia employee who validated
and confirmed Ortigas' reservation must have made a mistake because actually,
he was informed by the Lufthansa Rome office that Ortigas could only be
waitlisted, meaning there was no valid reservation made.
·
SC: Facts would show that Ortigas was
able to make a proper reservation.
·
First, assuming there was such an error, it
has been proven that under the so-called pool arrangement among different
airline companies pursuant to the International Air Transport Association
(IATA) agreement of which Alitalia and Lufthansa are signatories, both
companies are constituted thereby as agents of each other in the issuing of tickets
and other matters pertaining to their relations with those who would need their
services. Since there can be no question that on its face, the annotations made
by Alitalia on the ticket here in dispute cannot have any other meaning than
that the reservation of Ortigas for the Rome-HK flight was validated and
confirmed, Lufthansa's disclaimer is unavailing.
·
Second, it appears that when Ortigas checked
in at the airport, the Lufthansa lady employee thereat told him, after making
the proper verification, that the reservation was correct.
·
Third,
in the testimony of witness Ivo Lazzari, a Lufthansa employee, he
admitted that it was a fact that the reservation of Ortigas for first class was
confirmed, albeit he qualified that this was done already in the morning of
November 18th, the day of the flight, almost at the last hour. What seems to
have happened was that somehow the first class accommodations for that flight
were overboard and Lufthansa tried to solve the problem by downgrading Ortigas
to the economy class in favor of a Belgian.
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
·
Lufthansa: There could not have been any
possible discrimination by reason of race against Ortigas because from his
appearance, he can easily be taken for a European or white. Besides, there were
other orientals in the same flight on that occasion.
·
SC: This ratiocination cannot carry the
day for Lufthansa, for what appears from the evidence in this case is not
really a case of a general policy of discriminating against orientals or
non-whites, but a specific act of Lufthansa employee at the airport of giving
preference to a Belgian after examining Ortigas's passport wherein his Filipino
nationality is noted.
·
Nobody, much less a common carrier who is
under constant special obligation to give utmost consideration to the
convenience of its customers, may be permitted to relieve itself from any
difficulty situation created by its own lack of diligence in the conduct of its
affairs in a manner prejudicial to such customers.
·
When it comes to contracts of common carriage,
inattention and lack of care on the part of the carrier resulting in the
failure of the passenger to be accommodated in the class contracted for amounts
to bad faith or fraud which entitles the passenger to the award of moral
damages in accordance with Article 2220 of the Civil Code.
·
In the instant case, the breach appears to be
of graver nature, since the preference given to the Belgian passenger over
Ortigas was done willfully and in wanton disregard of his rights and his
dignity as a human being and as a Filipino, who may not be discriminated
against with impunity.
·
The present case of Ortigas follows a long
list of cases involving Filipino passengers experiencing racial discrimination
in the hands of foreign airlines.
ENTRAPMENT OF A CAPTIVE PASSENGER
·
Lufthansa: There could have been no way by
which its Rome office could have assured Ortigas about what he would be given
in Cairo, the flight being fully booked as it was without any assurance of any
first class seat being vacated by then.
·
SC: Despite the shabby treatment he
received from Lufthansa and its agents, Ortigas was forced to stay in the
flight because he was held "captive" by the circumstances. In Rome,
the airport terminal he was at (Via Gioliti) was exclusive to Lufthansa and was
37 kms away from the next nearest terminal, such that he could not have booked
other flights from other airlines even if he wanted to. In other legs of the
flight, his plea to have Lufthansa's agents call up other airlines for first class
seats likewise proved unavailing. Too, all his luggages were in the Lufthansa
plane, divesting him of control thereof.
·
In view of the insistence of Ortigas that he
be given the first class accommodation he had contracted and paid for, the
least that the Rome office should have done was to communicate with Cairo and
strongly urge that all possible effort be made to comply with his well grounded
request. As it happened, however, the Cairo office informed Ortigas when he
arrived there that they had not received any word at all from Rome.
HAPPY DESPITE ALL THE TROUBLE
·
Lufthansa: Ortigas did not take offense at
being downgraded, as in fact, he was in jovial mood throughout the trip,
enjoying his conversation and exchange of amenities with his seatmate, who by
strange coincidence happened to be the Manager of Lufthansa German Airlines for
the district of Australia and New Zealand holding said position since 1962.
Moreover, the economy class accommodations are not much different from first
class and Ortigas was not delayed in his trip.
·
SC: This argument is pointless. A
passenger contracts for first class accommodations for many reasons peculiar to
himself and pays a higher price therefor, and it is certainly not for the
airline to say later, after it deprives him of his space in order to favor
another passenger, that economy class is anyway just as good as first class.
That Ortigas was rightfully indignant is not difficult to imagine. No person in
his normal senses and possessed of human dignity would have been unperturbed
and unruffled by the treatment he had received. More, he was under express
admonition of his doctor taking care of his ailing coronary condition to travel
only in first class. Indeed, that he complained and made himself emphatically
clear while still in Rome is sufficiently substantiated in the record.
Whether
Ortigas is entitled to damages. – YES.
·
There can be no doubt as to the right of
Ortigas to damages, both moral and exemplary.
Jurisprudencial precedents on the award of damages to plaintiffs
vs. airline companies
·
In the case of Nicolas L. Cuenca, then
Commissioner of Public Highways of the Philippines, he boarded a Northwest
plane in Manila with a first class ticket to Tokyo, but upon arrival at
Okinawa, an agent of the company rudely compelled him, over his protest, to
move over to the tourist class, which he had to do, so he could reach the
international conference he was attending on time. Under these facts, the Court
held that the P20,000 awarded by the lower court to Cuenca "may well be
considered as nominal and also as exemplary, the Court of Appeals having
modified the trial court's designation thereof as moral, saying it should have
been nominal.
·
In Lopez v. PanAm, Honorable Fernando Lopez,
then an incumbent senator and former Vice President of the Philippines,
together with his wife and his daughter and son-in-law, made first class
reservations with the Pan American World Airways in its Tokyo-San Francisco
flight. The reservation having been confirmed, first class tickets were
subsequently issued in their favor. Mistakenly, however, defendant's agent
cancelled said reservation, but expecting some cancellations before the flight
scheduled about a month later, the reservations supervisor decided to withhold
the information from them, with the result that upon arrival in Tokyo, the
Lopezes discovered they had no first class accommodations and were thus
compelled to take the tourist class, just so the senator could be on time for
his pressing engagements in the United States. In the light of these facts, the
Court held there was a breach of the contract of carriage and viewed as the
element of bad faith entitling the plaintiffs to moral damages for such
contractual breach, the failure of the agents of the defendant to inform the
plaintiffs on time that their reservation for first class had long before been
cancelled by mistake. According to the Court, such omission placed plaintiffs
in a predicament that enabled the company to keep the plaintiffs as their
passengers in the tourist class, thereby retaining the business and promoting
the company's self-interest at the expense of, embarrassment, discomfort and
humiliation on the part of the plaintiffs.
·
In Air France vs. Carrascoso, Mr. Rafael
Carrascoso, a civil engineer who was going to Lourdes, France, as a member of a
religious group of pilgrims was issued by the Philippine Air Lines, as agent of
the defendant Air France, a ticket for first class round trip from Manila to
Rome. From Manila, Carrascoso travelled first class, as per said ticket, but at
Bangkok, the Manager of the defendant airline forced him to vacate the first
class seat because there was a white man who allegedly had a better right
thereto, without, however, showing him the basis for such preference.
·
In Zulueta vs. Pan American Airways Inc., the
Court awarded the plaintiffs: Zulueta, the husband, his wife and a minor
daughter, a total of P775,000 as damages consisting of P500,000 as moral,
P200,000 as exemplary and P75,000 as attorney's fees, apart from actual damages.
In that case, the Zulueta's were coming home to Manila from Honolulu in a
Pan-American plane. At Wake, however, where the plane arrived at 4:00 o'clock
in the morning, Zulueta could not be found at flight time because, without
letting anyone know, not even his wife or daughter, he had relieved himself,
according to him, at the beach behind the terminal. When at last, he was found,
the Pan-Am employee who first met him while walking back from the beach
remonstrated him thus: "What in the hell do you think you are! Get on that
plane." This angered Zulueta who engaged the said employee in an exchange
of angry words. In the meanwhile, the pilot who had been tipped by a "man
from the State Department", also a passenger in that flight, that there
might be a bomb in the plane and expressed apprehension for the safety of the
flight unless Zulueta could be found, ordered the unloading of the bags of the
Zuluetas, and when three of the four of them had already been unloaded, he
ordered Zulueta to open them, but the latter refused. Another exchange of angry
words followed, in the course of which, according to Zulueta's evidence, the
pilot went to the extent of referring to him and his family as "those
monkeys". Ultimately, the plane left without Zulueta, albeit his wife and
daughter were on board, because the captain refused to allow Zulueta to board
until after his bags were opened and inspected, which Zulueta refused entirely
to do. Although, said decision is not yet final, because of the pendency of a
second motion for reconsideration the Court has not yet resolved, the Court has
already allowed the partial execution of the judgment, thus enabling Zuluetas
to collect already one-half of the amount or over P335,000, which amount,
according to the concurring and dissenting opinion there of the writer of the
instant decision could be the least that should anyway be allowed. Of course,
the Court did not itemize the award but granted the same to the family as a
whole, but it is evident that in the final distribution, Zulueta would get for
himself from at least P150,000 to not more than P200,00.
·
In the present case, the award of the
following damages is proper:
MORAL DAMAGES
·
Lufthansa: Moral damages should only be P20,000
similar to the SC's ruling in the Cuenca case (see above). The trial court's
award of P100,000 in moral damages is also excessive because unlike in the case
of Lopez v. PanAm, Ortigas is not a public officer of repute.
·
SC: The trial court's award of P100,000
for moral damages should be increased to P150,000.
·
In Cuenca, the amount awarded was only
P20,000, for the very obvious reason that in that case, what was involved was
only one leg of the flight contracted for, namely, that from Okinawa to Tokyo.
In the case at bar, the offense was repeated four times, at Rome, Cairo,
Dharham and Calcutta, with apparent cold indifference of Lufthansa's agents to
Ortigas's plight.
·
Although Ortigas has not held any elective
public office, he has however, a distinguished record as a private citizen, a
lawyer, businessman, a civic and religious leader, a member of numerous
government boards and organizations as well as of local and international
bodies, and is the recipient of awards and citations for outstanding services
and achievements.
·
Moreover, he was suffering from a heart
ailment and has been advised by his physician to travel first class because it
is more relaxing and comfortable. His position as chairman of the boards of
directors of the corporation he represented also required that he travel in
that manner. He was, furthermore, carrying a special passport issued by the
Philippine Government to represent it and business corporations abroad.
·
His sickness and the need for him to travel in
the most comfortable manner possible were made known to Lufthansa's employee,
but he paid no heed to them. Instead, he engaged Ortigas in a heated
discussion, summarily brushed off his protests and pleas, humiliated him, and
tricked him into boarding his employer's plane, endangering thereby his health
and obliging him to take medicine to forestall an attack.
·
And finally, there is evidence that he was
discriminated against because of his nationality for he was told to yield his
first class seat to a Belgian only after his passport was examined and his
Filipino citizenship must have been noted.
·
Besides, the award of anything in excess of
P150,000 is not unprecedented, as in the case of Zulueta v. PanAm (see above).
EXEMPLARY DAMAGES
·
SC: Exemplary damages should be increased
from P30,000 to P100,000.
·
According to the Code Commission, exemplary
damages are required by public policy, for wanton acts must be repressed. They
are an antidote so that the poison of wickedness may not run through the body
politic.
·
The rationale behind exemplary or corrective
damages is, as the name implies, to provide an example or correction for public
good. In view of its nature, it should be imposed in such an amount as to
sufficiently and effectively deter similar breach of contracts by Lufthansa and
other airline companies.
·
As an airline, Lufthansa should be made to pay
an amount that can really serve as a deterrent against a seeming pattern of
indifference and unconcern, and what is worse, of discrimination for racial
reasons, discernible in the treatment of air passengers.
·
The present case is not the first time the SC
had to rule on a matter involving foreign airlines discriminating against
Filipinos. Unless the proper sanctions are applied, it does not appear that the
present case is going to be the last yet, of instances wherein Filipino
passengers having validated and confirmed tickets for first class would be
shoved to the economy class, over their valid objections and without any regard
at all to their feelings and convenience, only to favor other passengers
presumed by the airlines to be of superior race, hence, deserving preference.
·
It is high time everyone concerned were made
to realize that the laws of the Philippines do not permit any act of
discrimination against its citizens, specially when this accompanies a clear
breach of contractual obligations of common carriers whose business is affected
with public interest and must be directed to serve the convenience and comfort
of the passengers. When any disregard of such laws is committed, the Supreme
Court, as the interpreter of such laws, must exact the commensurate liability
which they contemplate.