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PHILIPPINE SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

EN BANC

[G.R. No. 46020. December 8, 1938. ]

CONCEPCION MURILLO, in her own behalf and as guardian ad litem of Antonio, Carmen, Flavio and Jose Luis, surnamed Madrid, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. ALFREDO MENDOZA, doing business under the name and style of "MANILA STEAMSHIP NAVIGATION", Defendant-Appellant.

Cardenas & Casal, for Appellant.

Arturo Zialcita, for Appellees.

DeWitt, Perkins & Ponce Enrile as amici curiae.

SYLLABUS


1. WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION ACT; GROSS INCOME; EVIDENCE; BURDEN OF PROOF. — In the case of Rolan v. Perez (34 Off. Gaz., 1593), it was held that under the law, as amended, the fact that the gross income of the employer during the year next preceding the one in which the accident occurred was P20,000 or more, as required by law, need not be alleged or proven by the plaintiff, but that, it being a defense of the defendant, the burden is on the latter to allege and establish it.

2. ID.; MARITIME ACCIDENTS; APPLICABILITY OF THE LAW. — Unlike legislations existing in the United States of America wherein, aside from the workmen’s compensation laws adopted by the different States, the federal admiralty laws and the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Worker’s Compensation Act are in force, our Legislature has deemed it advisable to include in the Workmen’s Compensation Act all accidents that may occur to workmen or employees in factories, shops and other industrial and agricultural workplaces as well as in the interisland seas of the archipelago. The applicability of the Workmen’s Compensation Act to accidents occurring in the Philippine seas has been discussed for the first time in the case of Enciso v. Dy-Liacco (57 Phil., 446 et seq.) , where the question was decided affirmatively.

3. ID.; RESPONSIBILITY OF EMPLOYERS WHEN THEY DO NOT INCUR FAULT OR NEGLIGENCE; EFFECT OF THE LAW. — In the case of Enciso v. Dy-Liacco, supra, this court stated that the consensus of opinion and of the decisions of the courts of various States of the Union is that workmen’s compensation acts have been enacted to abrogate the common law and the Civil Code relative to obligations arising from nonpunishable fault or negligence. Under Act No. 3428, as amended by Act No. 3812, accidents are compensated independently of whether or not the employer has incurred fault or negligence, and the only exceptions thereto are the accidents arising from the voluntary act of the injured person, those resulting from the drunkenness of the employee who had the accident, and those caused by the notorious negligence thereof (section 4, Act No. 3428).

4. ID.; THEORY ON WHICH LAW IS BASED. — The workmen’s compensation acts are based on a new theory of compensation distinct from the theories of damages, payments under the acts being made as compensation, not as indemnity (71 C. J., 232; Mobile & O. R. Co. v. Industrial Commission of Illinois, 28 F. [2d], 228; Martin v. Kennecott Copper Corporation, 252, F., 207; Devine’s Case, 129 N. E., 414; Duart v. Simmons, 121 N. E., 10; 251 U. S., 457; Kenney v. Boston, 111 N. E., 47; Erie R. Co. v. Linnekogel, 248 F., 389; De Biasi v. Normandy Water Co., 228 F., 234; Schlickenmayer v. City of Highland Park, 235 N. W., 156; Andrejwski v. Wolverine Coal Co., 148 N. W., 684; Flanigan v. Hines, 193 P., 1077).

5. ID.; LEGISLATIVE INTENTION. — The intention of the Legislature in enacting the Workmen’s Compensation Act was to secure workmen and their dependents against becoming objects of charity, by making a reasonable compensation for such accidental calamities as are incidental to the employment. Under such Act injuries to workmen and employees are to be considered no longer as results of fault or negligence, but as the products of the industry in which the employee is concerned. Compensation for such injuries is, under the theory of such statute, like any other item in the cost of production or transportation, and ultimately charged to the consumer. The law substitutes for liability for negligence an entirely new conception; that is, that if the injury arises out of and in the course of the employment, under the doctrine of man’s humanity to man, the cost of compensation must be one of the elements to be liquidated and balanced in the course of consumption. In other words, the theory of the law is that, if the industry produces an injury, the cost of that injury shall be included in the cost of the product of the industry. Hence the provision that the injury must arise out of and in the course of the employment (Mobile & O. R. Co. v. Industrial Commission of Illinois, 28 F. [2d], 228, 229).

6. ID.; ACCIDENTS ARISING OUT OF AND IN THE COURSE OF THE EMPLOYMENT; DEFINITIONS; CASE AT BAR. — Section 2 of Act No. 3428, as amended by section 1 of Act No. 3812, provides that in order that an accident may be compensated, it is necessary that it has arisen out of and in the course of the employment. A definition of the phrase arising out of the employment that has received wide favor is the one stating that this element required by law exists when there is apparent to the rational mind, upon consideration of all the circumstances, a causal connection between the conditions under which the work is required to be performed and the resulting injury (71 C. J., 648; Michigan Transit Corporation v. Brown, 56 F. [2d], 200, 202; In re Employers’ Liability Assur. Corporation, 102 N. E., 697; Industrial Commission of Colorado v. Enyeart, 256 P., 314, 315; Mann v. Glastonbury Knitting Co., 96 A., 368; 90 Conn., 116; Vicennes Bridge Co. v. Industrial Commission, 184 N. E., 603, 605; Triangle Auto Painting & Trimming Co. v. Industrial Commission, 178 N. E., 886, 889; Landon v. Industrial Commission, 173 N. E., 49, 50; Franklin Coal & Coke Co. v. Industrial Commission, 152 N. E., 498, 500; Edelweiss Gardens v. Industrial Commission, 125 N. E., 260; Texas Indemnity Ins. Co. v. McLaury, 54 S. W. [2d], 862, 863). It is that an accident has arisen in the course of the employment when it has occurred within the period of the employment, at a place where the employee may reasonably be, and while he is reasonably fulfilling the duties of his employment (71 C. J., 659; Stakonis v. United Advertising Co., 148 A., 334; Taylor v. St. Paul’s Universalist Church, 145 A., 887; Flanagan v. Webster & Webster, 142 A., 201; Larke v. John Hancock Mut. L. Ins. Co., 97 A., 320).

7. ID.; ID.; PROBATORY FACTS. — The defendant and the amici curi
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