Common Carriers; Liability for Loss (1991)

Alejandor Camaling of Alegria, Cebu, is engaged in buying copra, charcoal, firewood, and used bottles
and in reselling them in Cebu City. He uses 2 big Isuzu trucks for the purpose; however, he has no
certificate of public convenience or franchise to do business as a common carrier. On the return trips to
Alegria, he loads his trucks with various merchandise of other merchants in Alegria and the neighboring
municipalities of Badian and Ginatilan. He charges them freight rates much lower than the regular rates.
In one of the return trips, which left Cebu City at 8:30 p.m. 1 cargo truck was loaded with several boxes
of sardines, valued at P100th, belonging to one of his customers, Pedro Rabor. While passing the zigzag
road between Carcar and Barili, Cebu, which is midway between Cebu City and Alegria, the truck was
hijacked by 3 armed men who took all the boxes of Mercantile Law Bar Examination Q & A (1990-2006)
sardines and kidnapped the driver and his helper, releasing them in Cebu City only 2 days later. Pedro
Rabor sought to recover from Alejandro the value of the sardines. The latter contends that he is not
liable therefore because he is not a common carrier under the Civil Code and, even granting for the sake
of argument that he is, he is not liable for the occurrence of the loss as it was due to a cause beyond his
control. If you were the judge, would you sustain the contention of Alejandro?

SUGGESTED ANSWER: If I were the Judge, I would hold Alejandro as having engaged as a common
carrier. A person who offers his services to carry passengers or goods for a fee is a common carrier
regardless of whether he has a certificate of public convenience or not, whether it is his main business
or incidental to such business, whether it is scheduled or unscheduled service, and whether he offers his
services to the general public or to a limited .I will however, sustain the contention of Alejandro that he
is not liable for the loss of the goods. A common carrier is not an insurer of the cargo. If it can be
established that the loss, despite the exercise of extraordinary diligence, could not have been avoided,
liability does not ensue against the carrier. The hijacking by 3 armed men of the truck used by Alejandro
is one of such cases