CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 1 US VS GUINTO February 26, 1990 FACTS: These cases

are consolidated because they all involve the doctrine of state immunity. 1) US VS
GUINTO (GR No. 76607) The private respondents are suing several officers of the US
Air Force in Clark Air Base in connection with the bidding conducted by them for
contracts for barber services in the said base which was won by a certain Dizon. The
respondents wanted to cancel the award to the bid winner because they claimed that
Dizon had included in his bid an area not included in the invitation to bid, and
subsequently, to conduct a rebidding. 2} US VS RODRIGO (GR No 79470) Genove,
employed as a cook in the Main Club at John Hay Station, was dismissed after it had
been ascertained in an investigation that he poured urine in the soup stock. Genove filed a
complaint for damages against the club manager who was also an officer of USAF. 2) US
VS CEBALLOS (GR No 80018) Luis Bautista, a barracks boy in Camp ODonnel, was
arrested following a buy-bust operation conducted by petitioners who were USAF
officers and special agents of the Air Force Office. A trial ensued where petitioners
testified against respondent Bautista. As a result of the charge, Bautista was dismissed
from his employment. He then filed for damages against petitioners claiming that because
of the latters acts, he was removed from his job. 3) US VS ALARCON VERGARA
(GR No 80258) Complaint for damages was filed by private respondents against
individual petitioners for injuries allegedly sustained by handcuffing and unleashing dogs
on them by the latter. The individual petitioners, US military officers, deny this stressing
that the private respondents were arrested for theft but resisted arrest, thus incurring the
injuries. In all these cases, the individual petitioners claimed they were just exercising
their official functions. The USA was not impleaded in the complaints but has moved to
dismiss on the ground that they are in effect suits against it to which it has not consented.

ISSUE: Is the doctrine of state immunity applicable in the cases at bar?

HELD: A state may not be sued without its consent. This doctrine is not absolute and
does not say the state may not be sued under any circumstance. The rule says that the
state may not be sued without its consent, which clearly imports that it may be sued if it
consents. The consent of the state to be sued may be manifested expressly or impliedly.
Express consent may be embodied in a general law or a special law. Consent is implied
when the sate enters into a contract or it itself commences litigation. When the
government enters into a contract, it is deemed to have descended to the level of the other
contracting party and divested itself of its sovereign immunity from suit with its implied
consent. Waiver is also implied when the government files a complaint, thus opening
itself to a counterclaim. The USA, like any other state, will be deemed to have impliedly
waived its non-suability if it has entered into a contract in its proprietary or private
capacity. nelynbotes-frinal1-08-2009 1) US VS GUINTO (GR No 76607) The court finds
the barbershops subject to the concessions granted by the US government to be
commercial enterprises operated by private persons. The petitioners cannot plead any
immunity from the complaint, the contract in question being decidedly commercial. Thus,
the petition is DISMISSED and the lower court directed to proceed with the hearing and
decision of the case. 2) US VS RODRIGO (GR No 79470) The restaurant services
offered at the John Hay Station operated for profit as a commercial and not a government
activity. The petitioners cannot invoke the doctrine of self immunity to justify the
dismissal of the damage suit filed by Genove. Not even the US government can claim
such immunity because by entering into the employment contract with Geneove in the
discharge of its proprietary functions, it impliedly divested itself of its sovereign
immunity from suit. Still, the court holds that the complaint against petitioners in the
lower court be dismissed. There was nothing arbitrary about the proceedings in the
dismissal of Genove, the petitioner acted quite properly in terminating the private
respondents employment for his unbelievably nauseating act of polluting the soup
stock with urine. 3) US VS CEBALLOS (GR No 80018) It was clear that the
individually-named petitioners were acting in the exercise of their official functions when
they conducted the buy-bust operation and thereafter testified against the complainant.
For discharging their duties as agents of the United States, thay cannot be directly
impleaded for acts imputable to their principal, which has not given its consent to be
sued. The conclusion of the trial court that the answer filed by the special counsel of
Clark Air Base was a submission of the US government to its jurisdiction is rejected.
Express waiver cannot be made by a mere counsel of the government but must be
effected through a duly-enacted statute. Neither does it come under the implied form of
consent. Thus, the petition is granted and the civil case filed in the lower court dismissed.
4) US VS ALARCON VERGARA (GR No 80258) The contradictory factual allegations
in this case need a closer study of what actually happened. The record were too meager to
indicate that the defendants were really discharging their official duties or had actually
exceeded their authority when the incident occurred. Only after the lower court shall have
determined in what capacity the petitioners were acting will the court determine, if still
necessary, if the doctrine of state immunity is applicable.