St. Louis Realty Corp. vs CA

TITLE: St. Louis Realty Corp. vs. CA

CITATION: 133 SCRA 179

FACTS:

Dr. Conrado Aramil, a neuropsychiatrist and member of the faculty of UE Ramon Magsaysay Medical Center, seek to recover damage for a wrongful advertisement in the Sunday Times where St Louis Realty Corp. misrepresented his house with Mr. Arcadio.

St. Louis published an ad on December 15, 1968 with the heading “where the heart is”.  This was republished on January 5, 1969.  In the advertisement, the house featured was Dr Aramil’s house and not Mr. Arcadio with whom the company asked permission and the intended house to be published.  After Dr Aramil noticed the mistake, he wrote a letter to St. Louis demanding an explanation 1 week after such receipt.  No rectification or apology was published despite that it was received by Ernesto Magtoto, the officer in charge of the advertisement.  This prompted Dr. Aramil’s counsel to demand actual, moral and exemplary damages.  On March 18, 1969, St Louis published an ad now with Mr. Arcadio’s real house but nothing on the apology or explanation of the error.  Dr Aramil filed a complaint for damages on March 29.  During the April 15 ad, the notice of rectification was published. 

ISSUE: Whether St. Louis is liable to pay damages to Dr. Aramil.

HELD:

St Louis was grossly negligent in mixing up residences in a widely circulated publication.  Furthermore, it never made any written apology and explanation of the mix-up. It just contented itself with a cavalier "rectification ".

The trial court awarded Aramil P8,000 as actual damages, P20,000 as moral damages and P2,000 as attorney's fees.  When St. Louis Realty appealed to the Court of Appeals, CA affirmed the judgement for the reason that “St. Louis Realty committed an actionable quasi-delict under articles 21 and 26 of the Civil Code because the questioned advertisements pictured a beautiful house which did not belong to Arcadio but to Doctor Aramil who, naturally, was annoyed by that contretemps”.

WHEREFORE, the judgment of the Appellate Court is affirmed. Costs against the petitioner.