CASE 35

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES, INC., PETITIONER

vs.
NATIVIDAD AND ENRIQUE AGANA, RESPONDENTS
G.R. No. 126297, January 31, 2007

Facts:

On April 4, 1984, Natividad Agana was rushed to the Medical City General Hospital
because of difficulty of bowel movement and bloody anal discharge. After a series of
medical examinations, Dr. Miguel Ampil diagnosed her to be suffering from Cancer of the
sigmoid. On April 11, 1984, Dr. Ampil assisted by the medical staff of the Medical City
Hospital performed an Anterior resection surgery on Natividad. He found that the
malignancy on her sigmoid area had spread on her left ovary, necessitating the removal
of certain portions of it. Thus, Dr. Ampil obtained the consent of Natividad’s husband,
Enrique Agana, to permit Dr. Juan Fuentes to perform hysterectomy on her. After Dr.
Fuentes had completed the hysterectomy, Dr. Ampil took over, completed the operation
and closed the incision after searching for the missing 2 gauzes as indicated by the
assisting nurses but failed to locate it. After a couple of days, Natividad complained of
excruciating pains in her anal region but Dr. Ampil said it is a natural consequence of the
operation/surgery and recommended that she consult an oncologist to examine the
cancerous nodes which were not removed during the operation. Natividad and her
husband went to the US to seek further treatment and she was declared free from cancer.
A piece of gauze portruding from Natividad’s vagina was found by her daughter which
was then removed by hand by Dr. Ampil and assured that the pains will be vanished.
However, it didn’t. The pains intensified prompting Natividad to seek treatment at the
Polymedic General Hospital. While confined there, Dr. Ramon Guttierez detected the
presence of another foreign object in her vagina – a foul smelling gauze measuring 1.5
inches in width which badly infected her vagina. A recto-vaginal fistula had forced stool
to excrete through her vagina. Another surgical operation was needed to remedy the
damage.

Issue:

Whether or not Dr. Ampil and Fuentes are liable for medical malpractice and the
PSI for damages due to the negligence of the said doctors.

Ruling:

Yes (Dr. Ampil). No (Fuentes). Yes (PSI). An operation requiring the placing of
sponges in the incision is not complete until the sponges are properly removed, and it is
settled that the leaving of sponges or other foreign substances in the wound after the
incision has been closed is at least prima facie negligence by the operating surgeon. To
put it simply, such act is considered so inconsistent with due care as to raise inference of
negligence. There are even legions of authorities to the effect that such act is negligence
per se.

This is a clear case of medical malpractice or more appropriately, medical

negligence. To successfully pursue this kind of case, a patient must only prove that a
health care provider either failed to do something which a reasonably prudent health care
provider would have done, or that he did something that a reasonably prudent provider
would not have done; and that failure or action caused injury to the patient. Simply puts
the elements are duty, breach, injury, and proximate causation. Dr. Ampil, as the lead
surgeon, had the duty to remove all foreign objects, such as gauzes, from Natividad’s
body before closure of the incision. When he failed to do so, it was his duty to inform
Natividad about it. Dr. Ampil breached both duties. Such breach caused injury to
Natividad, necessitating her further examination by American doctors and another
surgery. That Dr. Ampil’s negligence is the proximate cause of Natividad’s injury could be
traced from his act of closing the incision despite the information given by the attending
nurses that 2 pieces of gauze were still missing. That they were later on extracted from
Natividad’s vagina established the causal link between Dr. Ampil’s negligence and the
injury. And what further aggravated such injury was his deliberate concealment of this
missing gauzes from the knowledge of Natividad and her family.

The requisites for the applicability of the doctrine of res ipsa liquitor are:

a. Occurrence of an injury;
b. The thing which caused the injury was under the control and management of the
defendant;
c. The occurrence was such that in the ordinary course of things would not have
happened if those who had control or management used proper care, and;
d. The absence of explanation by the defendant

Of the foregoing, the most instrumental is the “Control and management of the thing
which caused the injury.”

Under the “Captain of the ship” rule, the operating surgeon is the person in complete
charge of the surgery room and all personnel connected with the operation.

The knowledge of any of the staff of Medical City constitutes knowledge of PSI.

The doctrine of corporate responsibility has the duty to see that it meets the standards
of responsibilities for the care of patients. Such duty includes the proper supervision of
the members of its medical staff. The hospital accordingly has the duty to make a
reasonable effort to monitor and oversee the treatment prescribed and administered by
the physician practicing in its premises.
 CASE 36

PHILIPPINE NATIONAL BANK, PETITIONER

vs.
F.F. CRUZ AND CO., INC., RESPONDENTS
G.R. No. 173259, July 25, 2011

Facts:

This petition for review arose from a case for damages filed by FF Cruz against
PNB. Plaintiff FF Cruz has opened an account at PNB-Timog Avenue branch, wherein
its president and secretary-treasurer were the named signatories. Plaintiff FF Cruz avers
that PNB has been negligent to deduct the cashier’s and manager’s checks amounting to
Php 9,950,000.00 and Php 3,260,000.00, respectively, as the same were unauthorized
and fraudulently made by the company accountant Aurea Caparas as both the president
and the secretary were out of the country at that time. The plaintiff seeks to credit back
and restore to its account the value of the checks to which the defendant bank refused
as the defendant bank alleged that it exercised due diligence in handling the account of
FF Cruz, as the application of said checks have passed through standard bank
procedures and it was only after finding that it has no infirmity that the checks were given
due course. The trial court rendered a Decision against defendant bank for not calling or
personally verifying from the authorized signatories the legitimacy of the subject
withdrawals considering that they were huge amounts. For this reason, defendant PNB
had the last clear chance to prevent the unauthorized debits from the FF Cruz account.
And thus, PNB should bear the whole loss. On appeal, the Court of Appeal, affirmed the
Decision of the trial court with modification on the award for damages that PNB should
only pay 60% of the actual damage and the plaintiff FF Cruz should bear the remaining
40% for its contributory negligence by giving authority to its company accountant to
transact with defendant bank PNB. Petitioner PNB appealed the Court of Appeals
Decision.

Issue:

Whether the Philippine National Bank is liable for the loss or not.

Ruling:

Yes. As correctly found by the appellate court, PNB failed to make the
proper verification because the applications for the managers check do not bear
the signature of the bank verifier. PNB concedes the absence of the subject signature
but argues that the same was the result of inadvertence. PNB was negligent in the
handling of FF Cruz’s combo account, specifically, with respect to PNBs failure to
detect the forgeries in the subject applications for managers check which could
have prevented the loss. It further states, that PNB failed to meet the high standard of
diligence required by the circumstances to prevent the fraud, where the bank’s negligence
is the proximate cause of the loss and the depositor is guilty of contributory negligence,
the damage between the bank and the depositor, a 60-40 ration applies. Wherefore, the
petition was denied, and the Court of Appeal’s Decision is affirmed.
 CASE 37

ALFREDO RODILLAS Y BONDOC, PETITIONER

vs.
THE HONORABLE SANDIGANBAYAN and
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENTS
G.R. No. L-58652, May 20, 1988

Facts:

Alfredo Rodillas is a policeman specially charged with the duty of keeping under
his custody one Zenaida Sacris Andres, a detention prisoner being tried for violation of
the Dangerous Drugs Act.

After the hearing, Rodillas allowed Zenaida to have lunch with her husband. While
eating, Zenaida’s husband asked Rodillas if he could accompany his wife to the comfort
room as she was not feeling well and felt like defecating. The accused accompanied
Zenaida and a lady companion to the ladies’ comfort room while he stood guard along
the alley facing the door, without first ascertaining for himself whether said comfort room
is safe and without any egress by which the said detention prisoner could escape.

Not long after, the lady companion of Zenaida came out and told him that she was
going to buy sanitary napkins for Zenaida. After ten minutes elapsed without the lady
companion of Zenaida coming back, the accused entered the comfort room. To his
surprise, he found Zenaida no longer inside the comfort room. He noticed that the window
of said comfort room was not provided with window grills.

Rodillas formally reported the matter to his superior officer at the City Jail. The
Sandiganbayan found him guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of Infidelity in the
Custody of Prisoner Thru Negligence under Article 224 of the RPC.

Issue:

Whether Alfredo Rodillas Y Bondoc is liable for Infidelity of Custody of Prisoner or not.

Ruling:

Yes. The elements of the crime under Article 224 are: a) that the offender is a
public officer; b) that he is charged with the conveyance or custody of a prisoner, either
detention prisoner or prisoner by final judgment; and c) that such prisoner escapes
through his negligence.

There is no question that the petitioner is a public officer. Neither is there any
dispute as to the fact that he was charged with the custody of a prisoner who was being
tried for a violation of the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972.
 The only disputed issue is the petitioner’s negligence resulting in the escape of the
detention prisoner, Zenaida Andres. The negligence referred to is such definite laxity as
all but amounts to a deliberate non-performance of duty on the part of the guard.

It is evident from the records that the petitioner acted negligently and beyond the
scope of his authority when he permitted his charge to create the situation which led to
her escape. As a police officer who was charged with the duty to return the prisoner
directly to jail, the deviation from his duty was clearly a violation of the regulations.