DOLE PHILIPPINES, INC., plaintiff-appellant, vs. MARITIME COMPANY OF THE PHILIPPINES, defendant-appellee; G.R. No. L-61352 February 27, 1987

Topic: Article 18. In matters which are governed by the Code of Commerce and special laws, their deficiency shall be supplied by the provisions of this Code

GIST: Civil code doesn't apply in this case.

FACTS:

carrier: Maritime Company of the Philippines

consignee: Dole Philippines, Inc

1. Appellant Dole Philippines, Inc seeks to claim for loss and/or damage to a shipment of machine parts against the carrier, Maritime Company of the Philippines (Maritime), under the provisions of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act.

2. The subject cargo was discharged in Dadiangas unto the custody of the consignee on December 18, 1971.

3. The plaintiff filed the corresponding claim for the damages sustained by the cargo with the defendant vessel on May 4, 1972.

4. On June 11, 1973, the plaintiff filed a complaint in the CFI of Manila, embodying three causes of action involving three separate and different shipments.

5. On December 11, 1974, Judge Serafin Cuevas dismissed the first two causes of action with prejudice and without pronouncement as to costs because the parties had settled or compromised the claims involved therein.

6. The third cause of action, which covered the cargo subject of this case, now was likewise dismissed but without prejudice as it was not covered by the settlement. The parties upon a joint motion to dismiss filed the dismissal of that complaint containing the three causes of action. Hence, this appeal.

7. Maritime filed an answer pleading inter alia the affirmative defense of prescription under the provisions of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act.

ISSUE:

Whether or not Article 1155 of the Civil Code providing that ‘the prescription of actions is interrupted by the making of an extrajudicial written demand by the creditor’ is applicable to actions brought under the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act (Sec 3(6)).

HELD:

NO. In such a case, the general provisions of the new Civil Code (Art. 1155) cannot be made to apply, as such an application would have the effect of extending the one-year period of prescription fixed in the law. It is desirable that matters affecting transportation of goods by sea be decided in as short a time as possible the application of the provisions of Article 1155 of the new Civil Code would unnecessarily extend the period and; permit delays in the settlement of questions affecting transportation, contrary to the clear intent and purpose of the law. The demand in this instance would be the claim for damage filed by Dole with Maritime on May 4, 1972. The effect of that demand would have been to renew the one year prescriptive period from the date of its making. Stated otherwise, under Dole's theory, when its claim was received by Maritime, the one-year prescriptive period was interrupted — "tolled" would be the more precise term — and began to run anew from May 4, 1972, affording Dole another period of one (1) year counted from that date within which to institute action on its claim for damage. Unfortunately, Dole let the new period lapse without filing action. It instituted the case only on June 11, 1973, more than one month after that period has expired and its right. Dole's contention that the prescriptive period “remained tolled as of May 4, 1972 (and that) in legal contemplation (the) case was filed on January 6, 1975, well within the one-year prescriptive period in Sec. 3(6) of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act." equates tolling with an indefinite suspension. It is clearly fallacious and merits no consideration.