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 counter claim. 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.