I'm Giancarlo Enrico S. Pozon, a Wushu instructor, investor and Barrister... That's right, Barrister; I graduated from law school and took the Bar Exams, now I'm waiting for the results. I created this blog to make Philippine Law easy to understand for the average person. It's all about free legal advice. There are many law blogs. But the problem is that many of them are written for lawyers and law students. They use words that can't be understood by ordinary people.
Many lawyers, judges and law students consider themselves as superior to most human beings because of their knowledge of the law. It bothers me since the law is supposed to serve society. Since the law is meant to serve society as a whole, it is important that is must be understood by everybody.
This does not mean that we should all become lawyers. It means that although law is a highly specialized profession, the first duty of everybody in this profession is to make the law understandable to all; that's why all these articles are free legal advice.
Like I said, this blog is about law -but it's for the ordinary people, not the lawyers. It's for the ordinary folk so they will know what is good and bad for them, and that making them aware of the law will help us all improve society as a whole. This is free legal advice for everybody!
1. Negligence
So we look for the negligent act of the tortfeasor. Criminal negligence will come under the jurisdiction of criminal law. The negligence we are looking for here is Culpa Aquiliana/quasi-delict (see Negligence.)
When searching for negligence, watch out for the following:
A. Presumption juris tantum
A.k.a. rebuttable presumption. There are cases where the law actually says that negligence exists because of specific details mentioned. When this happens, the law in question governs how the case will be resolved. The victim, however, must prove that that particular law has been violated.
B. Res ipsa loquitur
This principle literally means "the thing speaks for itself." When considerations of public policy (i.e. acts done for the common good) can't be proven, or are difficult to prove with competent evidence. Ex. a drunk man on a motorcycle doubling over into the neighbor's rose bushes (ouch!) and claiming that he's sober. More on this later.
2. Damage/injury
Obviously!
3. Causal relationship between damage and negligence
It must be proven that the negligence of the tortfeasor is the logical and natural cause of the damage. This is known as Proximate Cause. Be careful because there are actual instances where the actions of the victim himself can be the cause of the injury. If that is proven, the victim can't recover damages. Ex. the victim, eager to make money from a tort, drops a banana peel on a wet floor of the defendant's office building and steps on it -unfortunately he's caught by the security cameras in the act. There is also what is known as Contributory Negligence: the victim is partly responsible for his injuries. If contributory negligence is proven, damages can be reduced based on the extent of the victim's own negligence.
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