CASE DIGEST - British Airways v CA; GR No. 92288 J. Nocon; 9 February 1993

 

CONTRACT TO CARRY v. CONTRACT OF CARRIAGE

 

British Airways v CA; GR No. 92288

J. Nocon; 9 February 1993

DOCTRINE: In dealing with the contract of common carriage of passengers for purpose of accuracy, there are two (2) aspects of the same, namely: (a) the contract "to carry (at some future time)," which contract is consensual and is necessarily perfected by mere consent (See Article 1356, Civil Code of the Philippines), and (b) the contract "of carriage" or "of common carriage" itself which should be considered as a real contract for not until the carrier is actually used can the carrier be said to have already assumed the obligation of a carrier.

FACTS:

Private respondent First International Trading and General Services Co., a duly licensed domestic recruitment and placement agency, received a telex message from its principal ROLACO Engineering and Contracting Services in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to recruit Filipino contract workers in behalf of said principal. ROLACO Engineering and Contracting Services paid to the Jeddah branch of petitioner British Airways, Inc. airfare tickets for 93 contract workers with specific instruction to transport said workers to Jeddah on or before March 30, 1981.

As soon as petitioner received a prepaid ticket advice from its Jeddah branch to transport the 93 workers, private respondent was immediately informed by petitioner that its principal had forwarded 93 prepaid tickets. Private respondent instructed its travel agent, ADB Travel and Tours. Inc., to book the 93 workers with petitioner but the latter failed to fly said workers, thereby compelling private respondent to borrow money in the amount of P304,416.00 in order to purchase airline tickets from the other airlines as evidenced by the cash vouchers for the 93 workers it had recruited who must leave immediately since the visas of said workers are valid only for 45 days and the Bureau of Employment Services mandates that contract workers must be sent to the job site within a period of 30 days.

Private respondent was again informed by the petitioner that it had received a prepaid ticket advice from its Jeddah branch for the transportation of 27 contract workers. Immediately, private respondent instructed its travel agent to book the 27 contract workers with the petitioner but the latter was only able to book and confirm 16 seats on its June 9, 1981 flight. However, on the date of the scheduled flight only 9 workers were able to board said flight while the remaining 7 workers were rebooked to June 30, 1981 which bookings were again cancelled by the petitioner without any prior notice to either private respondent or the workers.

Thereafter, the 7 workers were rebooked to the July 4,1981 flight of petitioner with 6 more workers booked for said flight. Unfortunately, the confirmed bookings of the 13 workers were again cancelled and rebooked to July 7, 1981. Private respondent paid the travel tax of the said workers as required by the petitioner but when the receipt of the tax payments was submitted, the latter informed private respondent that it can only confirm the seats of the 12 workers on its July 7, 1981 flight.

However, the confirmed seats of said workers were again cancelled without any prior notice either to the private respondent or said workers. The 12 workers were finally able to leave for Jeddah after private respondent had bought tickets from the other airlines. Thus, private respondent demanded compensation for the damages it had incurred by the latter's repeated failure to transport its contract workers despite confirmed bookings and payment of the corresponding travel taxes.

The counsel of private respondent sent another letter to the petitioner demanding the latter to pay the amount of P350,000.00 representing damages and unrealized profit or income which was denied by the petitioner. Private respondent received a telex message from its principal cancelling the hiring of the remaining recruited workers due to the delay in transporting the workers to Jeddah.

Private respondent filed a complaint for damages against petitioner with the Regional Trial Court of Manila. Petitioner, alleged in its Answer with counterclaims that it received a telex message from Jeddah on March 20, 1981 advising that the principal of private respondent had prepaid the airfares of 100 persons to transport private respondent's contract workers from Manila to Jeddah on or before March 30, 1981. However, due to the unavailability of space and limited time, petitioner had to return to its sponsor in Jeddah the prepaid ticket advice consequently not even one of the alleged 93 contract workers were booked in any of its flights.

Petitioner received another prepaid ticket advice to transport 16 contract workers of private respondent to Jeddah but the travel agent of the private respondent booked only 10 contract workers for petitioner's June 9, 1981 flight. However, only 9 contract workers boarded the scheduled flight with 1 passenger not showing up as evidenced by the Philippine Airlines' passenger manifest for Flight BA-020. Private respondent's travel agent booked seats for 5 contract workers on petitioner's July 4, 1981 flight but said travel agent cancelled the booking of 2 passengers while the other 3 passengers did not show up on said flight.

The travel agent of the private respondent booked 7 more contract workers in addition to the previous 5 contract workers who were not able to board the July 4, 1981 flight with the petitioner's July 7, 1981 flight which was accepted by petitioner subject to reconfirmation. However on July 6, 1981, petitioner's computer system broke down which resulted to petitioner's failure to get a reconfirmation from Saudi Arabia Airlines causing the automatic cancellation of the bookings of private respondent's 12 contract workers.

In the morning of July 7, 1981, the computer system of the petitioner was reinstalled and immediately petitioner tried to reinstate the bookings of the 12 workers with either Gulf Air or Saudi Arabia Airlines but both airlines replied that no seat was available on that date and had to place the 12 workers on the wait list. Said information was duly relayed to the private respondent and the 12 workers before the scheduled flight. The trial court rendered its decision in favor of plaintiff. Then, petitioner appealed said decision to respondent appellate court. However, respondent appellate court affirmed the decision of the trial court. Hence, this petition.

ISSUE:

Whether the private respondent has no cause of action against it there being no perfected contract of carriage existing between them as no ticket was ever issued to private respondent's contract workers and, therefore, the obligation of the petitioner to transport said contract workers did not arise.

RULING:

Yes. The private respondent has a cause of action since there was a perfected contract of carriage even there was no ticket issued to private respondent’s contract workers.

Private respondent had a valid cause of action for damages against petitioner. A cause of action is an act or omission of one party in violation of the legal right or rights of the other. Petitioner's repeated failures to transport private respondent's workers in its flight despite confirmed booking of said workers clearly constitutes breach of contract and bad faith on its part.

In resolving petitioner's theory that private respondent has no cause of action in the instant case, the appellate court correctly held that:

In dealing with the contract of common carriage of passengers for purpose of accuracy, there are two (2) aspects of the same, namely: (a) the contract "to carry (at some future time)," which contract is consensual and is necessarily perfected by mere consent (See Article 1356, Civil Code of the Philippines), and (b) the contract "of carriage" or "of common carriage" itself which should be considered as a real contract for not until the carrier is actually used can the carrier be said to have already assumed the obligation of a carrier. (Paras, Civil Code Annotated, Vol. V, p. 429, Eleventh Ed.)

In the instant case, the contract "to carry" is the one involved which is consensual and is perfected by the mere consent of the parties.

There is no dispute as to the appellee's consent to the said contract "to carry" its contract workers from Manila to Jeddah. The appellant's consent thereto, on the other hand, was manifested by its acceptance of the PTA or prepaid ticket advice that ROLACO Engineering has prepaid the airfares of the appellee's contract workers advising the appellant that it must transport the contract workers on or before the end of March, 1981 and the other batch in June, 1981.

Even if a PTA is merely an advice from the sponsors that an airline is authorized to issue a ticket and thus no ticket was yet issued, the fact remains that the passage had already been paid for by the principal of the appellee, and the appellant had accepted such payment. The existence of this payment was never objected to nor questioned by the appellant in the lower court. Thus, the cause or consideration which is the fare paid for the passengers exists in this case.

The third essential requisite of a contract is an object certain. In this contract "to carry", such an object is the transport of the passengers from the place of departure to the place of destination as stated in the telex.

Accordingly, there could be no more pretensions as to the existence of an oral contract of carriage imposing reciprocal obligations on both parties.

In the case of appellee, it has fully complied with the obligation, namely, the payment of the fare and its willingness for its contract workers to leave for their place of destination.

AFFIRMED with the MODIFICATION