The Supreme Court has affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeals ordering Sulpicio Lines Inc. to pay damages to one of the survivors of the ill-fated m/v Princess of the Orient that sank near Fortune Island in Batangas in 1998.
In a 19-page decision written by Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin, the SC junked for lack of merit the petition of Sulpicio assailing the CA ruling directing the owners of Sulpicio Lines to compensate survivor Napoleon Sesante.
“Moral damages are meant to enable the injured party to obtain the means, diversions or amusements in order to alleviate the moral suffering. Exemplary damages are designed to permit the courts to reshape the behavior that is socially deleterious in its consequence by creating negative incentives or deterrents against such behavior,” the high court said.
The tribunal upheld the CA’s June 27, 2005 decision, placing moral damages at P1 million, exemplary damages at P1 million, and temperate damages at P120,000—all of which will be paid to the heirs of the late Sesante who has already passed away.
The SC ruled that all the monetary amounts shall earn an interest of 6 percent per annum until Sulpicio Lines has fully paid Sesante’s heirs.
Sulpicio Lines earlier sought the dismissal of complaint, arguing that Sesante’s complaint for damages was purely personal and cannot be transferred to his heirs upon his death.
The high court, however, rejected the argument, citing Section 16, Rule 3 of the Rules of Court which states that “Whenever a party to a pending action dies, and the claim is not thereby extinguished…the heirs of the deceased may be allowed to be substituted for the deceased.”
Even assuming the seaworthiness of the m/v Princess of the Orient, the SC said Sulpicio could not escape liability considering that based on the findings of the Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI), the immediate and proximate cause of the sinking of the vessel had been the gross negligence of its captain in maneuvering the vessel.
Of the 388 recorded passengers of the ship, 150 were killed in the mishap. Sesante, then a member of the Philippine National Police and a lawyer, was one of the passengers who survived the sinking.