CHAPTER 13: LAW ON BIRTH AND CAPACITY
PRINCIPLES AND CASES IN PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW:
A PROCEDURAL APPROACH
-oOo-
MARK ANGELO S. DELA PEÑA
To cite this online book, please use the following:
Dela Peña. 2023. "Principles and Cases in Private International Law: A Procedural Approach." Published by Project Jurisprudence - Philippines. Published: September 17, 2023. Link: [Insert link] Last accessed: [Insert date of access].
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CHAPTER 13:
LAW ON BIRTH AND CAPACITY
Juridical capacity, which is the fitness to be the subject of legal relations, is inherent in every natural person and is lost only through death. Capacity to act, which is the power to do acts with legal effect, is acquired and may be lost.[1]
A person is a physical or legal being susceptible of rights and obligations or of being the subject of legal relations.[2] On the other hand, a right is the power which a person has to demand from another a prestation or the power to do or not to do, or to demand something, i.e., an obligation which is the juridical necessity to give, to do or not to do. From the viewpoint of another wielding a right, the debtor or obligor's obligation is the very reason the right exists in the first place; from the viewpoint of another shouldering an obligation, the creditor or obligee's right is the very reason why the obligation has to be performed, paid, fulfilled or accomplished.[3]
Juridical capacity is an inherent and ineffaceable attribute of man; it attaches to him by the mere fact of his being a man and is lost only through death. Capacity to act, on the other hand, is acquired and may be lost. The former can exist without the latter, but the existence of the latter always implies that of the former. The union of these two is the full civil capacity.[4]
In one case, Continental Steel v. Montaño,[5] the Supreme Court was faced with a unique question. It was whether or not the father-employee is entitled to death benefits under a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) when his wife suffered a miscarriage. According to the employer, no, it was not entitled to such benefit because the child was never born and, as a result, it had no juridical capacity and no capacity to act. The Supreme Court sided with the father-employee and said: “We need not establish civil personality of the unborn child herein since his/her juridical capacity and capacity to act as a person are not in issue. It is not a question before us whether the unborn child acquired any rights or incurred any obligations prior to his/her death that were passed on to or assumed by the child’s parents. The rights to bereavement leave and other death benefits in the instant case pertain directly to the parents of the unborn child upon the latter’s death.”
In the Continental Steel case,[6] the Court went on to explain that death has been defined as the cessation of life. Life is not synonymous with civil personality. One need not acquire civil personality first before he/she could die. Even a child inside the womb already has life. No less than the Constitution recognizes the life of the unborn from conception, that the State must protect equally with the life of the mother. If the unborn already has life, then the cessation thereof even prior to the child being delivered, qualifies as death. Likewise, the unborn child can be considered a dependent under the CBA. As Continental Steel itself defines, a dependent is “one who relies on another for support; one not able to exist or sustain oneself without the power or aid of someone else.” Under said general definition, even an unborn child is a dependent of its parents. Hortillano’s child could not have reached 38-39 weeks of its gestational life without depending upon its mother, Hortillano’s wife, for sustenance. Additionally, it is explicit in the CBA provisions in question that the dependent may be the parent, spouse, or child of a married employee; or the parent, brother, or sister of a single employee. The CBA did not provide a qualification for the child dependent, such that the child must have been born or must have acquired civil personality, as Continental Steel avers. Without such qualification, then child shall be understood in its more general sense, which includes the unborn fetus in the mother’s womb.
Juridical capacity and capacity to act are legal capacities which are governed by the law of a person’s nationality.[7] If the law of Canada states that its nationals only acquire capacity to act at the age of 18, this rule shall follow a Canadian citizen wherever s/he may be because the term used by Article 15 of the New Civil Code is “even though living abroad.”
In the case of Government v. Frank,[8] Illinois-citizen Frank while in Chicago, Illinois entered into a contract with the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands. The contract provided for a clause wherein Frank bound himself liable to the plaintiff for the amount expended by the Government by way of expenses incurred in traveling from Chicago to Manila and one-half salary paid during the period agreed upon. Frank entered upon the performance of the contract in the year 1903 but, in 1904, left the service of the Government and refused to make further compliance with the terms of the contract. The Government sued Frank for this. Frank countered that, under Philippine laws, he was a minor at the time of the contract’s perfection while the Government respondent by saying that Frank was already an adult under the law of Illinois.
Said the Supreme Court of the Philippines: “The record discloses that, at the time the contract was entered into in the State of Illinois, he was an adult under the laws of that State and had full authority to contract. [Frank] claims that, by reason of the fact that, under the laws of the Philippine Islands at the time the contract was made, male persons in said Islands did not reach their majority until they had attained the age of 23 years, he was not liable under said contract, contending that the laws of the Philippine Islands governed. It is not disputed — upon the contrary the fact is admitted — that at the time and place of the making of the contract in question the defendant had full capacity to make the same. No rule is better settled in law than that matters bearing upon the execution, interpretation and validity of a contract are determined by the law of the place where the contract is made. Matters connected with its performance are regulated by the law prevailing at the place of performance. Matters respecting a remedy, such as the bringing of suit, admissibility of evidence, and statutes of limitations, depend upon the law of the place where the suit is brought.”
With all respect due to the Supreme Court, the Government v. Frank case,[9] however, while it arrived at the correct conclusion, actually followed the wrong analysis. It is not lex loci celebrationis that should be used as a justification here but the principle of lex nationalii under Article 15 of the New Civil Code of the Philippines. This comment notwithstanding, the student should note that said case was decided in 1909 while the New Civil Code of the Philippines on August 30, 1950.[10]
Birth, Death’s Effect
On Legal Personality
Birth determines personality; but the conceived child shall be considered born for all purposes that are favorable to it, provided it be born later with the conditions specified in the following article.[11]
For civil purposes, the foetus is considered born if it is alive at the time it is completely delivered from the mother's womb. However, if the foetus had an intra-uterine life of less than seven months, it is not deemed born if it dies within twenty-four hours after its complete delivery from the maternal womb.[12]
Civil personality is extinguished by death. The effect of death upon the rights and obligations of the deceased is determined by law, by contract and by will.[13]
Death is a legal status. It is officially registered in public records called the civil registry. The same is true for birth. This is why, in the Philippines, a proof of a person’s death is his/her certificate of live birth while proof of a person’s death is his/her certificate of death.
It is the law of the Philippines that determines whether a person is born or is dead. Under Article 40 as cited above, one is deemed born in the eyes of the law if the foetus is alive at the time it is completely delivered from the mother's womb. The reason why it is important to accurately tell the precise moment a person is considered born is that birth determines personality. If all requirements provided by law are present, a human being is born and is considered a person, thereby endowing him/her with juridical capacity and, under certain conditions, with capacity to act.
The status of a human being as a person ends upon death. The death of a person, in turn, spawns many legal issues – and possibly, disputes – in relation to the rights and obligations of the deceased. Law, contract and the deceased’s last will and testament may determine the resolution to these issues or disputes. For example, the death of a person will, ipso jure, start the machinery of succession law because the rights to succession are transmitted from the moment of the death of the decedent.[14]
Different jurisdictions are free to determine the precise moment of the death of its citizens from the viewpoint of law. For example, the law of a foreign country may provide that death occurs only on the day of the deceased’s interment or after the lapse of a period of hours or days from the declaration of death by a physicians. These matters pertain to the national law of the deceased because death is a status.[15]
Another hypothetical scenario is that the laws of a foreign jurisdiction declares that a person is considered born only after three days from the actual date the foetus is expelled from the mother’s womb. In the Philippines, the term “completely delivered from the mother's womb” is said to mean the cutting of the umbilical cord, which may take place by natural causes or by surgical operation.[16] Hence, insofar as Philippine laws are concerned it is this precise moment that determines when a person is born.
THE GELUZ CASE
In Geluz v. Court of Appeals,[17] in the year 1950, before Nita Villanueva and Oscar Lazo were married, Villanueva became pregnant. To conceal her pregnancy from her parents and upon her aunt’s advice, she had an abortion by Antonio Geluz, a physician. After Villanueva and Lazo got married, she became pregnant for the second time. As she was an employee of the Commission on Elections and found it inconvenient, she had her second abortion by Geluz in October 1953. In less than two years, she again became pregnant.
On 21 February 1955, Villanueva went to the clinic of Geluz in Manila accompanied by her sister and her niece. Unknown to Lazo and without his consent, his wife had an abortion for the third time, an abortion of a two-month old fetus. Villanueva paid Geluz fifty pesos. At that time, Lazo was in Cagayan campaigning for his election to the provincial board. On the basis of the last abortion, Lazo instituted an action in the Court of First Instance of Manila against Geluz. The trial court ordered Geluz to pay Lazo damages, attorney’s fees and costs of the suit. On appeal, the Court of Appeals sustained the decision of the trial court. Hence, Geluz filed a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court. The factual digest above was taken from Legal Assassins.[18]
In the Geluz case,[19] the Supreme Court said: “The Court of Appeals and the trial court predicated the award of damages in the sum of P3,000.06 upon the provisions of the initial paragraph of Article 2206 of the Civil Code of the Philippines. This we believe to be error, for the said article, in fixing a minimum award of P3,000.00 for the death of a person, does not cover the case of an unborn foetus that is not endowed with personality. Under the system of our Civil Code, “la criatura abortiva no alcanza la categoria de persona natural y en consscuencia es un ser no nacido a la vida del Derecho,” being incapable of having rights and obligations.” According to the High Court, considering that an action for pecuniary damages on account of personal injury or death pertains primarily to the one injured, it is easy to see that if no action for such damages could be instituted on behalf of the unborn child on account of the injuries it received, no such right of action could derivatively accrue to its parents or heirs.
The Court went on to explained, thus: “In fact, even if a cause of action did accrue on behalf of the unborn child, the same was extinguished by its pre-natal death, since no transmission to anyone can take place from on that lacked juridical personality (or juridical capacity as distinguished from capacity to act). It is no answer to invoke the provisional personality of a conceived child (conceptus pro nato habetur) under Article 40 of the Civil Code, because that same article expressly limits such provisional personality by imposing the condition that the child should be subsequently born alive: “provided it be born later with the condition specified in the following article”. In the present case, there is no dispute that the child was dead when separated from its mother's womb.”
In the same case, the Court clarified that: “This is not to say that the parents are not entitled to collect any damages at all. But such damages must be those inflicted directly upon them, as distinguished from the injury or violation of the rights of the deceased, his right to life and physical integrity. Because the parents can not expect either help, support or services from an unborn child, they would normally be limited to moral damages for the illegal arrest of the normal development of the spes hominis that was the foetus.”
Note that the Geluz case is quite a debatable ruling in the legal community. Critics of this ruling say that, while it is true that an action arising from personal injury must be brought by the person injured, even if the child was later born, any cause of action that pertains to the child may be brought by its parents, considering that the child would not have the capacity to act until the age set by law. Moreover, the personal injury to the the unborn that resulted in its death was the precise question in the Geluz case; hence, it is submitted that the death of the unborn should not be analyzed from the viewpoint of legal personality.
GELUZ CASE VS.
Montaño CASE
In fact, when the Supreme Court was confronted again by a case involving the death of an unborn, it was held in Continental Steel v. Montaño[20] that the civil personality of the unborn child need not be established in this case since his/her juridical capacity and capacity to act as a person are not in issue. It is not a question of whether the unborn child acquired any rights or incurred any obligations prior to his/her death that were passed on to or assumed by the child's parents. The rights to bereavement leave and other death benefits in the said case pertain directly to the parents of the unborn child upon the latter's death.
The Court explained that death has been defined as the cessation of life.[21] Life is not synonymous with civil personality. One need not acquire civil personality first before s/he could die. Even a child inside the womb already has life. No less than the Constitution recognizes the life of the unborn from conception,[22] that the State must protect equally with the life of the mother. If the unborn already has life, then the cessation thereof even prior to the child being delivered, qualifies as death. Nowhere in the Continental Steel v. Montaño decision did the Supreme Court cite the case of Geluz v. Court of Appeals.
[1] Article 37 of the New Civil Code of the Philippines.
[2] Project Jurisprudence. (2020, December 20). Juridical Capacity (Article 37, Civil Code). PROJECT JURISPRUDENCE. https://www.projectjurisprudence.com/2020/12/juridical-capacity-article-37-civil-code.html. Last access: September 09, 2023.
[3] See supra note 221.
[4] Sanchez Roman, 112-113; 1 Vaverde, 212.
[5] G.R. No. 182836, October 13, 2009.
[6] G.R. No. 182836, October 13, 2009.
[7] Article 15 of the New Civil Code of the Philippines.
[8] G.R. No. L-2935, March 23, 1909.
[9] G.R. No. L-2935, March 23, 1909.
[10] Lara v. Del Rosario, G.R. No. 6339, 50 Official Gazette 1957.
[11] Article 40 of the New Civil Code of the Philippines.
[12] Article 41 of the New Civil Code of the Philippines.
[13] Article 42 of the New Civil Code of the Philippines.
[14] Article 777 of the New Civil Code of the Philippines.
[15] Article 15 of the New Civil Code of the Philippines.
[16] UP Law Bar Operations Commission (2020). “Civil Law 2nd Week.” The University of the Philippines College of Law and the UP Law Bar Operations 2020-2021. Page 31, citing Tolentino.
[17] G.R. No. L-16439, July 20, 1961.
[18] Legal Assassins. (2020, June 27). Geluz vs. CA Case Digest - G.R. No. L-16439 - July 20, 1961. https://legalassassins.com/geluz-vs-ca/. Last accessed: September 02, 2023.
[19] G.R. No. L-16439, July 20, 1961.
[20] G.R. No. 182836, October 13, 2009.
[21] Black's Law Dictionary.
[22] Section 12 of Article II of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines.
