First Quezon City v CA GR. 98414 Feb 8, 1993

J. Grino-Aquino

Facts:

One Jose del Rosario was injured while boarding a bus owned by DMTC in the Manila International Airport. He was hospitalized for forty days. He filed suit against the bus company and the court granted him of over 100,000 pesos in damages.  The appellate court reduced damages to 55,090 pesos. The insurance company’s liability was limited to 12,000. The amount for insurance was made Php 50,000 in the appellate court’s decision. 

First Quezon City, the insurer of DTMC, filed a motion for reconsideration to limit the damages back to 12,000 pesos, the amount stipulated in the contract. This was denied hence this petition for review.

Issue: Can the amount of the insurance company’s  liability be limited to Php 12,000?

Held: Yes

Ratio: The contract stipulated liability at Php 12,000 per passenger and at Php 50,000 as the maximum liability per accident. This means that the insurer’s liability for a single accident will not exceed 50,000 pesos. The court gave the example of 10 persons injured leaving a total of Php 120,000 in insurance liability payments. But with the Php 50,000 limit, only such value was to be paid by the company to the insured.