II. QUASI-DELICT A.

ELEMENTS

Daywalt v. La Corporacion de los Padres A !stinos "ecoletos# et al

FACTS In 1902, Endencia executed a contract whereby she obligated herself to convey to plaintiff a tract of land. It was agreed that a deed should be executed as soon as the title to the land should be perfected and a Torrens certificate should be produced therefore in the na e of Endencia. True enough the decree had been obtained but the Torrens certificate was not issued until later. !ll the sa e, the parties entered into another contract with a view to carrying the original agree ent "i.e. 1902 contract# into effect. $till, a third agree ent was entered into between the parties in 1909% this ti e Endencia pro ised that upon receiving the Torrens title, she will i ediately deliver the sa e to &aywalt. In ti e, the Torrens certificate was issued. 'aplessly for the plaintiff, Endencia now beca e reluctant to turn over the sa e for the reason that it was not her intention to sell so large an a ount of land as what was found by the official survey. Eventually, the controversy(one different fro this case(had reached the $upre e )ourt which )ourt found for &aywalt% the )ourt ordered Endencia to convey the whole tract to &aywalt. *a )orporacion de los +adres ,ecoletos, is a religious corporation, who owned an estate on the sa e island i ediately ad-acent to the land which Endencia had sold to &aywalt ( for any years the ,ecoletos .athers had aintained large herds of cattle on the estate. .ather $an/, the person in charge with the far 0s anage ent, had long been well ac1uainted with Teodorica Endencia and exerted over her an influence and ascendency due to his religious character as well as to the personal friendship which existed between the . Teodorica appears to be a wo an of little personal force, easily sub-ect to influence, and upon all the i portant atters of business was accusto ed to see2, and was given, the advice of father $an/ and other e bers of his order. 'e was fully aware of the existence of the contract of 1902 as well as of the later i portant develop ents connected with the history of that contract and the contract substituted successively for it. 3hen the Torrens certificate was finally issued in 1909, Endencia delivered it for safe2eeping to the defendant corporation where it re ained in the custody and under the control of +. 4uan *abarga. 3hat is ore, .ather $an/ entered into an arrange ent with Endencia whereby large nu bers of cattle belonging to the defendant corporation were to be pastured upon said land during a period extending fro 4une 1, 1909, to 5ay 1, 1916. +laintiff &aywalt sued defendant *a )orporacion, in part, for da ages for wrongful interference in the perfor ance of the contract.

ISSUE 3hether the act of defendant *a )orporacion in advising Endencia to abstain fro with the contract constituted a tort. carrying on

HOLDING N$. !rticle 1902 of the )ivil )ode declares that any person who by an act or o ission, characteri/ed by fault or negligence, causes da age to another shall be liable for the da age so done. Ignoring so uch of this article as relates to liability for negligence, we ta2e the rule to be that a person is liable for da age done to another by any culpable act% and by 7culpable act7 we ean any act which is bla eworthy when -udged by accepted legal standards. The idea thus expressed is undoubtedly broad enough to include any rational conception of liability for the tortious acts li2ely to be developed in any society. The fact that the officials of defendant *a )orporacion ay have advised Endencia not to carry the contract into effect would not constitute actionable interference with such contract. It ay be added that when one considers the hardship that the ulti ate perfor ance of that contract entailed on the vendor, and the doubt in which the issue was involved ( to the extent that the decision of the )ourt of the .irst Instance was unfavorable to the plaintiff and the $upre e )ourt itself was divided ( the attitude of the defendant corporation, is not difficult to understand. To our ind a fair conclusion on this feature of the case is that father 4uan *abarga and his associates believed in good faith that the contract could not be enforced and that Teodorica would be wronged if it should be carried into effect. !ny advice or assistance which they ay have given was, therefore, pro pted by no ean or i proper otive. It is not, in our opinion, to be denied that Teodorica would have surrendered the docu ents of title and given possession of the land but for the influence and pro ptings of e bers of the defendants corporation. 8ut we do not credit the idea that they were in any degree influenced to the giving of such advice by the desire to secure to the selves the paltry privilege of gra/ing their cattle upon the land in 1uestion to the pre-udice of the -ust rights of the plaintiff.