The Supreme Court of the Philippines reviewed whether a husband could recover damages from a physician who performed abortions on the husband's wife without his consent. The Court found that an unborn fetus does not have legal personality and therefore no cause of action accrues on its behalf. While the physician's actions were illegal and immoral, damages must be for direct injuries to the parents, not the fetus. Here, the husband showed indifference to previous abortions and his primary concern seemed to be financial gain rather than addressing the physician's conduct, so no moral damages were found. The Court concluded the husband could not recover damages.
The Supreme Court of the Philippines reviewed whether a husband could recover damages from a physician who performed abortions on the husband's wife without his consent. The Court found that an unborn fetus does not have legal personality and therefore no cause of action accrues on its behalf. While the physician's actions were illegal and immoral, damages must be for direct injuries to the parents, not the fetus. Here, the husband showed indifference to previous abortions and his primary concern seemed to be financial gain rather than addressing the physician's conduct, so no moral damages were found. The Court concluded the husband could not recover damages.
The Supreme Court of the Philippines reviewed whether a husband could recover damages from a physician who performed abortions on the husband's wife without his consent. The Court found that an unborn fetus does not have legal personality and therefore no cause of action accrues on its behalf. While the physician's actions were illegal and immoral, damages must be for direct injuries to the parents, not the fetus. Here, the husband showed indifference to previous abortions and his primary concern seemed to be financial gain rather than addressing the physician's conduct, so no moral damages were found. The Court concluded the husband could not recover damages.
SUPREME COURT Purificacion and the latter's daughter Lucida, she again repaired Manila to the defendant's clinic on Carriedo and P. Gomez streets in Manila, where the three met the defendant and his wife. Nita was EN BANC again aborted, of a two-month old foetus, in consideration of the sum of fifty pesos, Philippine currency. The plaintiff was at this G.R. No. L-16439 July 20, 1961 time in the province of Cagayan, campaigning for his election to the provincial board; he did not know of, nor gave his consent, to the abortion. ANTONIO GELUZ, petitioner, vs. THE HON. COURT OF APPEALS and OSCAR LAZO, respondents. It is the third and last abortion that constitutes plaintiff's basis in filing this action and award of damages. Upon application of the defendant Geluz we granted certiorari. Mariano H. de Joya for petitioner. A.P. Salvador for respondents. The Court of Appeals and the trial court predicated the award of damages in the sum of P3,000.06 upon the provisions of the initial REYES, J.B.L., J.: paragraph of Article 2206 of the Civil Code of the Philippines. This we believe to be error, for the said article, in fixing a minimum award of This petition for certiorari brings up for review question whether the P3,000.00 for the death of a person, does not cover the case of an husband of a woman, who voluntarily procured her abortion, could unborn foetus that is not endowed with personality. Under the system of recover damages from physician who caused the same. our Civil Code, "la criatura abortiva no alcanza la categoria de persona natural y en consscuencia es un ser no nacido a la vida del Derecho" The litigation was commenced in the Court of First Instance of Manila by (Casso-Cervera, "Diccionario de Derecho Privado", Vol. 1, p. 49), being respondent Oscar Lazo, the of Nita Villanueva, against petitioner Antonio incapable of having rights and obligations. Geluz, a physician. Convinced of the merits of the complaint upon the evidence adduced, the trial court rendered judgment favor of plaintiff Since an action for pecuniary damages on account of personal injury or Lazo and against defendant Geluz, ordering the latter to pay P3,000.00 death pertains primarily to the one injured, it is easy to see that if no as damages, P700.00 attorney's fees and the costs of the suit. On action for such damages could be instituted on behalf of the unborn child appeal, Court of Appeals, in a special division of five, sustained the on account of the injuries it received, no such right of action could award by a majority vote of three justices as against two, who rendered a derivatively accrue to its parents or heirs. In fact, even if a cause of action separate dissenting opinion. did accrue on behalf of the unborn child, the same was extinguished by its pre-natal death, since no transmission to anyone can take place from The facts are set forth in the majority opinion as follows: on that lacked juridical personality (or juridical capacity as distinguished from capacity to act). It is no answer to invoke the provisional personality Nita Villanueva came to know the defendant (Antonio Geluz) for of a conceived child (conceptus pro nato habetur) under Article 40 of the the first time in 1948 — through her aunt Paula Yambot. In 1950 Civil Code, because that same article expressly limits such provisional she became pregnant by her present husband before they were personality by imposing the condition that the child should be legally married. Desiring to conceal her pregnancy from her subsequently born alive: "provided it be born later with the condition parent, and acting on the advice of her aunt, she had herself specified in the following article". In the present case, there is no dispute aborted by the defendant. After her marriage with the plaintiff, she that the child was dead when separated from its mother's womb. again became pregnant. As she was then employed in the Commission on Elections and her pregnancy proved to be The prevailing American jurisprudence is to the same effect; and it is inconvenient, she had herself aborted again by the defendant in generally held that recovery can not had for the death of an unborn child October 1953. Less than two years later, she again became (Stafford vs. Roadway Transit Co., 70 F. Supp. 555; Dietrich vs. Northampton, 52 Am. Rep. 242; and numerous cases collated in the It is unquestionable that the appellant's act in provoking the abortion of editorial note, 10 ALR, (2d) 639). appellee's wife, without medical necessity to warrant it, was a criminal and morally reprehensible act, that can not be too severely condemned; This is not to say that the parents are not entitled to collect any damages and the consent of the woman or that of her husband does not excuse it. at all. But such damages must be those inflicted directly upon them, as But the immorality or illegality of the act does not justify an award of distinguished from the injury or violation of the rights of the deceased, his damage that, under the circumstances on record, have no factual or legal right to life and physical integrity. Because the parents can not expect basis. either help, support or services from an unborn child, they would normally be limited to moral damages for the illegal arrest of the normal The decision appealed from is reversed, and the complaint ordered development of the spes hominis that was the foetus, i.e., on account of dismissed. Without costs. distress and anguish attendant to its loss, and the disappointment of their parental expectations (Civ. Code Art. 2217), as well as to exemplary Let a copy of this decision be furnished to the Department of Justice and damages, if the circumstances should warrant them (Art. 2230). But in the Board of Medical Examiners for their information and such the case before us, both the trial court and the Court of Appeals have not investigation and action against the appellee Antonio Geluz as the facts found any basis for an award of moral damages, evidently because the may warrant. appellee's indifference to the previous abortions of his wife, also caused by the appellant herein, clearly indicates that he was unconcerned with Bengzon, C.J., Padilla, Labrador, Barrera, Paredes, Dizon and Natividad, the frustration of his parental hopes and affections. The lower court JJ., concur. expressly found, and the majority opinion of the Court of Appeals did not Concepcion, J., took no part. contradict it, that the appellee was aware of the second abortion; and the De Leon, J., took no part. probabilities are that he was likewise aware of the first. Yet despite the suspicious repetition of the event, he appeared to have taken no steps to investigate or pinpoint the causes thereof, and secure the punishment of the responsible practitioner. Even after learning of the third abortion, the appellee does not seem to have taken interest in the administrative and criminal cases against the appellant. His only concern appears to have been directed at obtaining from the doctor a large money payment, since he sued for P50,000.00 damages and P3,000.00 attorney's fees, an "indemnity" claim that, under the circumstances of record, was clearly exaggerated.
The dissenting Justices of the Court of Appeals have aptly remarked that:
It seems to us that the normal reaction of a husband who
righteously feels outraged by the abortion which his wife has deliberately sought at the hands of a physician would be highminded rather than mercenary; and that his primary concern would be to see to it that the medical profession was purged of an unworthy member rather than turn his wife's indiscretion to personal profit, and with that idea in mind to press either the administrative or the criminal cases he had filed, or both, instead of abandoning them in favor of a civil action for damages of which not only he, but also his wife, would be the beneficiaries.