Photo from Unsplash | Jackson Simmer
The following post does not create a lawyer-client relationship between Alburo Alburo and Associates Law Offices (or any of its lawyers) and the reader. It is still best for you to engage the services of a lawyer or you may directly contact and consult Alburo Alburo and Associates Law Offices to address your specific legal concerns, if there is any.
Also, the matters contained in the following were written in accordance with the law, rules, and jurisprudence prevailing at the time of writing and posting, and do not include any future developments on the subject matter under discussion.
AT A GLANCE:
A corporation is not as a rule entitled to moral damages because, not being a natural person, it cannot experience physical suffering or such sentiments as wounded feelings, serious anxiety, mental anguish and moral shock. The only exception to this rule is where the corporation has a good reputation that is debased, resulting in its social humiliation. (SIMEX INTERNATIONAL, INCORPORATED, v. COURT OF APPEALS, G.R. No. 88013. March 19, 1990)
The law says –
Art. 2217. Moral damages include physical suffering, mental anguish, fright, serious anxiety, besmirched reputation, wounded feelings, moral shocks, social humiliation, and similar injury. Though incapable of pecuniary computation, moral damages may be recovered if they are the proximate result of the defendant’s wrongful act or omission.
Jurisprudence says –
A corporation is not as a rule entitled to moral damages because, not being a natural person, it cannot experience physical suffering or such sentiments as wounded feelings, serious anxiety, mental anguish and moral shock. The only exception to this rule is where the corporation has a good reputation that is debased, resulting in its social humiliation.
Moral damages are in the category of an award designed to compensate the claimant for actual injury suffered. and not to impose a penalty on the wrongdoer.The award is not meant to enrich the complainant at the expense of the defendant, but to enable the injured party to obtain means, diversion, or amusements that will serve to obviate then moral suffering he has undergone. It is aimed at the restoration, within the limits of the possible, of the spiritual status quo ante, and should be proportionate to the suffering inflicted. Trial courts must then guard against the award of exorbitant damages; they should exercise balanced restrained and measured objectivity to avoid suspicion that it was due to passion, prejudice, or corruption on the part of the trial court.
The award of moral damages cannot be granted in favor of a corporation because, being an artificial person and having existence only in legal contemplation, it has no feelings, no emotions, no senses, It cannot, therefore, experience physical suffering and mental anguish, which call be experienced only by one having a nervous system. The statement in People v. Manero and Mambulao Lumber Co. v. PNB that a corporation may recover moral damages if it “has a good reputation that is debased, resulting in social humiliation” is an obiter dictum.
Sources: SIMEX INTERNATIONAL (MANILA), INCORPORATED, v. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS, G.R. No. 88013. March 19, 1990; ABS-CBN BROADCASTING CORPORATION, vs. HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS, G.R. No. 128690 January 21, 1999
Read also: What is the rule on double holiday pay?
Alburo Alburo and Associates Law Offices specializes in business law and labor law consulting. For inquiries regarding taxation and taxpayer’s remedies, you may reach us at info@alburolaw.com, or dial us at (02)7745-4391/0917-5772207.
All rights reserved.