Gashem Shookat Baksh vs CA

Facts:
Private respondent filed a complaint against the petitioner for violation of their agreement to get married.
Private respondent who was a 22 years old, single, Filipino and has reputable character while petitioner
is an Iranian citizen who is an exchange student studying medical course at Lyceum. Allegedly, the
petitioner proposed to the private respondent whom the latter had accepted and agreed that they will
get married after the semester ends. Upon going to private respondent’s hometown (Guilig), considering
the proposal to marry her, her parents have agreed that they will live together. Allegedly, prior to their
cohabitation she was still a virgin. However, the relationship turned sour and she was maltreated by the
petitioner and sustained injuries. When a confrontation was set with the Barangay Captain, the petitioner
repudiated their marriage agreement because he was already married to someone in Bacolod prior to his
relationship with the respondent and that he discovered that respondent was stealing his money and
passport. However, all these were denied when he presented his counterclaim.

RTC Ruling:
Favored the respondent. Basis is Article 21 hence ordered to pay the respondent damages. It anchored its
decision based on the following: a) they were lovers, b) she was not a woman of loose morals or
questionable virtue who submits to sexual advances, c) by reason of his false pretenses, machinations and
deceit to marry her, the latter gave in to the sexual advances and even caused preparation for the
promised wedding and d) he clearly violated the Filipino's concept of morality and so brazenly defied the
traditional respect Filipinos have for their women.

CA Ruling:
Affirmed the decision.

Issue:
Whether damages may be recovered for a breach of promise to marry based on the Civil Code.

SUPREME COURT:
Yes.

Ratio:
Article 2176 of the Civil Code, which defines a quasi-delict is limited to negligent acts or omissions and
excludes the notion of willfulness or intent. Quasi-delict, known in Spanish legal treatises as culpa
aquiliana, is a civil law concept while torts is an Anglo-American or common law concept. Torts is much
broader than culpa aquiliana because it includes not only negligence, but intentional criminal acts as well
such as assault and battery, false imprisonment and deceit.

The existing rule is that a breach of promise to marry per se is not an actionable wrong. The history of
breach of promise suits in the United States and in England has shown that no other action lends itself
more readily to abuse by designing women and unscrupulous men. It is this experience which has led to
the abolition of rights of action in the so-called Heart Balm suits. Article 21, which is designed to expand
the concept of torts or quasi-delict in this jurisdiction by granting adequate legal remedy for the untold
number of moral wrongs which is impossible for human foresight to specifically enumerate and punish in
the statute books.

The award of damages (moral and actual) was justified because of fraud and deceit behind it. That he did
not have the intention of marrying her and that the promise was only a subtle scheme or deceptive device
to entice or inveigle her to accept him and consent to the sexual act.

Lastly, the pari delicto rule does not apply because the private respondent may not have been impelled
by the purest of intentions, she eventually submitted to the petitioner in sexual congress not out of lust,
but because of moral seduction. The application of the rule is only where the fault on both sides is, more
or less, equivalent. It does not apply where one party is literate or intelligent and the other one is not.