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COMPANIA
MARITIMA,
G. R. No. L-27134 February 28, 1986 -versus-JOSE C.
LIMSON,
PATAJO, J.: This an appeal from a Decision of the Court of First Instance of Manila[1] holding plaintiff Compania Maritima liable to defendant in the amount of P441,339.01 representing the difference between the claim of plaintiff for unpaid passage and freight charges for shipments of hogs and cattles on plaintiff's vessels for the period from October 1957 to February 1961, and the claim of defendant for the purchase price of foodstuffs sold by defendant to plaintiff, payments on account of freight not accounted for by plaintiff, and rebate to which defendant was entitled on the aforesaid freight charges. On October 8, 1962, plaintiff Compania Maritima filed a complaint against defendant Jose C. Limson for collection of the sum of P44,701.54 representing the balance of defendant's unpaid accounts for passage and freight on shipments of hogs, cattle and carabaos aboard plaintiff's vessels from various ports of Visayas and Mindanao for the period from October 1957 to February 1961. Attached to said complaint was the statement of account supporting plaintiff's claim for unpaid passage and freight. Defendant filed a motion for bill of particulars asking that plaintiff to attach to the complaint the bills of lading referred to in said statement of account in order to enable defendant to answer plaintiff's complaint. Plaintiff opposed said motion. The Court, however, ordered plaintiff to attach photostat copies of the bills of lading upon which the statement of account was based. Plaintiff's motion for reconsideration of said order was denied by the Court but, upon motion of plaintiff, said order was modified to allow plaintiff to attach duplicate originals of the bills of lading instead of photostat copies thereof.cralaw:red On July 16, 1963, defendant filed his answer to the complaint denying any liability to plaintiff. Defendant alleged that he had already fully paid for all the shipments he made and that a number of the bills of lading submitted by plaintiff as basis of its claim are not properly chargeable to defendant since he was not the shipper nor had he authorized said shipments which were made by parties other than those for whom defendant is liable or who had been duly authorized by defendant to make said shipments. Defendant further set up a counterclaim for the refund of the rebate to which he was entitled to pursuant to an agreement that he had with plaintiff for shipments made by him from Davao, Cotabato, Dadiangas, Iligan and Masbate and for cost of foodstuffs sold or delivered to plaintiff in the total amount of P411,477.45.cralaw:red Since the case involved primarily questions of accounting, upon motion of plaintiff, without the opposition of defendant, the Court appointed a commissioner to examine the accounts involved before the Court proceed with the hearing of the case. Anselmo T. del Rosario, a Certified Public Accountant, was thus appointed by the Court.cralaw:red On October 29, 1963, Mr. del Rosario submitted his report to the Court. The salient points in said report showed that, with respect to the claim of defendant against plaintiff, the same was in the total amount of P676,416.05 broken down as follows:
Freight adjustments - 8,170.45 Cash payments made by defendant - P235,007.85 P676,416.05
The bills examined by the Commissioner had been classified and regrouped by him into [1] original bills of lading signed by defendant or his agent; [2] original bills of lading without signature of defendant or his agent; and [3] charges with no original bills of lading, to wit:
[2] Original bills of lading without the signature of defendant - 310,317.21 [3] No original bills of lading - 166,867.28 Said Commissioner recommended that only the amount of P68,209.76 supported by original bills of lading signed by defendant or his agent is properly chargeable to defendant. After hearing, the lower Court rendered judgment based principally on the report of the Commissioner. The Court, however, held that defendant was liable for the bills of lading without originals involving a total of P166,867.26 but liable on the bills of lading which had not been signed by him or his authorized representative. The Court sustained defendant's claim that "Perry" was not his authorized representative. Thus, the lower Court rendered judgment sentencing plaintiff to pay defendant the sum of P441,339.01 with interest thereon at the legal rate from the date of the filing of the counterclaim plus P5,000.00 as attorney's fees. The amount of P441,339.01 is computed as follows:
Freight adjustments - P 8,170.45 Cash payments - 235,007.85 Foodstuffs and supplies delivered - 433,237.75 Total - P676,416.05 Deduct amount to plaintiff on bills of lading signed by defendant or his authorized representative - 68,209.76 Bills of lading without originals but supported by other copies of said bills of lading - 166,867.28 Total - 235,077.04 Balance due defendant - P441,339.01
while defendant assigned one sole assignment of error: We find that the Court a quo erred in rejecting the bills of lading signed by "Perry" where defendant appeared the shipper or consignee, those signed by "Perry" where persons other than defendant-appellant as shipper and the bills of lading unsigned by defendant. With regard to the 91 controverted bills of lading signed by "Perry" with Limson as shipper or consignee in the total amount of P61,981.50, witness Cabling testified that the signatures therein are those of Cipriano Magtibay alias "Perry" who took delivery of the cargoes stated therein after signing the delivery receipts. He testified thus:
Regarding the 149 controverted bills of lading in the name of other persons as shippers or consignees and signed by Perry in the total amount of P46,869.60, it was established that said bills of lading were for cattle and hogs purchased by the defendant from his "viajeros" in Manila which were delivered to and received by defendant, and for which he had to pay the freight charges, where in turn, he deducted from the purchase price the corresponding cost of freight; or were for cattles or hogs that belonged to Marcelino Tinoco from whom defendant had made arrangements for paying the purchase price of said Tinoco's cargo partly with the freight costs for which defendant agreed to be debited in his charge account with Maritima. These facts were admitted by the defendant himself when he testified on direct and cross-examination, supra. This was also confirmed by the testimony of Cabling. And now, corroborating the above facts as testified, Pagkalinawan, another witness for the plaintiff, testified thus:
The simpler way to determine how much is the total claim of plaintiff against defendant is to compute the amount of the freight on the face of the bills of lading supporting the statement of account attached to the complaint and deducting therefrom the rebates to which defendant is entitled to under the special arrangement made between defendant and Mr. F.J. Garay of Compania Maritima dated March 27, 1957. According to the statement of account submitted by plaintiff and attached to the complaint, the total of freight charges due from defendant is P698,159.14. [Annex "A" Complaint].cralaw:red This is the amount due based on what is charged in the bills of lading. It did not reflect the rebates because said bills of lading were prepared in the field offices of plaintiff where the special arrangement entitling defendant to rebate had not been transmitted.cralaw:red According to the report of the Commissioner, the total rebate to which defendant will be entitled to is P127,418.89 [Supplementary Report dated January 27, 1964, Exhibit "7-B"]. According to said Commissioner, he arrived at such amount in the following manner:
In other words, the Commissioner summed up the total number of hogs involved in the 340 shipments from Davao which must be some 50,692 hogs. The difference was arrived at thus:
less: 50,692 hogs multiplied by P4.50 per head = P228,114.00 P25,346.00 The difference, [P25,346.00] subtracted from the original computation of P152,764.89 resulted to the reduced rebate of P127,418.89 [Supplementary Report, supra]. However, instead of merely verifying the accuracy of the above-stated computation, the special rates, supra, accorded Limson was individually applied in computing the freightage due from Limson's shipments, as itemized in the "Spread of Charges Made to Limson's Account" [Commissioner's report, Exh. "7"], and arrived at the following:
for shipments from ports as provided for in the Agreement] - P517,842.30 Total freight charges [Limson's
shipments
(rates used
Total charges to Limson's Account - P586,867.96 In other words, the total freight overcharges which may be due Limson is [P698,159.14 less P586,867.96] P111,291.18 and not P127,418.91 as reported by the Commissioner. To be added to said rebate of P111,291.18 are the cash payment made by defendant of P235,007.85, freight adjustment of Pl,138.45 and cost of foodstuffs purchased by plaintiff from defendant of P411,982.35 [from the total of P433,237.75 representing the amount of said purchase deduct P21,255.40 which had been billed twice], all of which would total P759,419.83. Deducting from said amount, the total of freight charges in favor of plaintiff, as per the statement of account attached as Annex "A" to the complaint of P698,159.14 would give a balance of P61,260.69 in favor of defendant. It may be noted that in his answer to the complaint defendant stated that the total of his claim against plaintiff for the cost of foodstuffs delivered is P411,477.45 [par. 22, Answer of Defendant, page 68, Record on Appeal].cralaw:red Now, turning to defendant's sole assignment of error, namely, that the Trial Court erred in declaring defendant liable in the amount of P166,867.20 representing the amount covered by bills of lading where the originals had been presented.cralaw:red With respect to defendant's sole assignment of errors, namely, that Court a quo erred in declaring defendant liable in the amount of P166,867.28 which represents charges for freight where the originals of the bills of lading were not submitted, We find merit in the contention of plaintiff that the respondent Court correctly held defendant liable for said amount because the same actually represented freight charges based on the carbon originals of the ship's copy of the bills of lading where Limson appeared as consignee in the amount of P84,529.42 and those based on the ship's cargo manifests, where defendant appeared as consignee in the amount of P81,874.10. Respondent Court admitted in evidence said copies of the bills of lading which were not considered by the Commissioner because they are not actually the original copy of the bill of lading. The Commissioner accepted only the originals of the bills of lading because he did not consider even duplicate originals duly signed as originals. The ship's copies of the bills of lading and the cargo manifests were substantiated by other supporting documents which were found after the report of the Commissioner from among the records salvaged from the San Nicolas bodega fire or which were found among the records kept on plaintiff's terminal office. Said documents were presented in lieu of corresponding original of the consignee's copy of bill of lading which could not be submitted to the Commissioner nor presented as plaintiff's evidence to the Court because they were lost or destroyed during the remodelling of plaintiff's office building or during the fire at plaintiff's bodega at San Nicolas where they were brought for safekeeping. All said documents were presented as evidence to prove that all the freight charges for the shipments evidence thereby were duly earned by plaintiff and were properly debited in defendant's charge account. Apparently, the Commissioner rejected plaintiff's claims which were not actually supported by the original of the bills of lading notwithstanding the fact that duplicate original of the said documents and other secondary evidence such as the ship cargo manifests, have been presented as evidence. As stated above, witnesses Cabling and Ilagan testified that the practice was that when the originals of the bills of lading could not be surrendered because they have not yet been received by the consignee, the delivery of the cargo was, nevertheless, authorized and a delivery receipt was prepared on the basis of the ship's cargo manifests or the ship's copy of the bills of lading. This only shows that the ship's cargo manifests or the ship's copy of the bills of lading can be accepted as evidence of shipments made by defendant since he was allowed to accept delivery of said shipments even without presenting his copy of the bill of lading.cralaw:red By way of recapitulation, the total of freight charges due plaintiff based on the freight charges appearing on the face of the bills of lading supporting the statement of account attached to the complaint is P698,159.14. Deduct from said amount the following:
[2] Cash payments made by defendant - 235,007.85 [3] Freight adjustment - 1,138.45 [4] Cost of foodstuffs purchased
Total - P759,419.83 would show a balance in favor of defendant of P61,260.69. Presented otherwise, the total freight charges due plaintiff after deducting the rebate to which defendant is entitled to is P586,867.96. [P698,159.14 minus P111,291.18]. Against said freight charges of P586,867.96 defendant should be credited:
[2] Freight adjustment - 1,138.45 [3] Cost of foodstuffs - P411,982.35 Total - P648,128.65 giving a balance in favor of defendant of P61,260.69. WHEREFORE, the Decision of the Court a quo is hereby modified and judgment rendered against plaintiff on defendant's counterclaim for the amount of P61,260.69. In other respects, the appealed Decision is hereby affirmed. No pronouncement as to cost.cralaw:red SO ORDERED.cralaw:red Teehankee, Plana,
Gutierrez, Jr., and De la Fuente,
JJ., concur.
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[1] Before, under Republic Act 2613 approved on August 1, 1959, appeals from Decisions of Court of First Instance where the value of the property in question exceed P200,000, exclusive of interest and cost, was to the Supreme Court. |
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