September 3, 2023 Notes

Definition of Terms:

1. Law
Law is a rule of conduct, just, obligatory promulgated by legitimate authority, and of
common observance and benefit.

2. Medicine
The science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease (in
technical use often taken to exclude surgery).

Medicine is the science[1]and practice[2] of caring for a patient, managing

the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease,
and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practices
evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness.

3. Legal Medicine
Legal medicine / Forensic Medicine is that branch of medicine that applies medical and
surgical concepts, scientific knowledge and skills to medico-legal issues, in order to
assist the trier of facts in the proper dispensation of justice.

4. Medical jurisprudence
Medical jurisprudence is the study of Medical Law and its applicable jurisprudence that
governs, regulates, and defines the practice of medicine.

5. Forensic Medicine
Forensic Medicine is that branch of medicine that applies medical and surgical
concepts, scientific knowledge and skills to medico-legal issues, in order to assist the
trier of facts in the proper dispensation of justice.

6. Evidence
Evidence is the means, sanctioned by these Rules (of Court), of ascertaining in a
judicial proceeding, the truth respecting a matter of fact.

Basic Legal Principles Applied in Legal Medicine

1. Stare decisis
The rule of stare decisis et non quieta movere means one should follow past precedents
and should not disturb what has been settled.

It is a bar to any attempt to re-litigate the same issue where the same questions relating
to the same event have been put forward by parties similarly situated as in a previous
case litigated and decided by a competent court.

The principle presupposes that the facts of the precedent and the case to which it is
applied are substantially the same. Exception: when there is a conflict between the
precedent and the law. The duty of the court is to forsake and abandon any doctrine or
rule found to be in violation of law in force.

The doctrine of stare decisis is one of policy grounded on the necessity for securing
certainty and stability of judicial decisions.

2. Ignorance of the law vs. Ignorance of the facts

Ignorance of the law excuses no one.

Ignorance of facts (People v Ah Chong) Whether in this jurisdiction one can be held
criminally responsible who, by reason of a mistake as to the facts, does an act for which
he would be exempt from criminal liability if the facts were as he supposed them to be,
but which would constitute the crime of homicide or assassination if the actor had
known the true state of the facts at the time when he committed the act.

To this question we think there can be but one answer, and we hold that under such
circumstances there is no criminal liability, provided always that the alleged ignorance
or mistake or fact was not due to negligence or bad faith.

In broader terms, ignorance or mistake of fact, if such ignorance or mistake of fact is

sufficient to negative a particular intent which under the law is a necessary ingredient of
the offense charged (e.g., in larcerny, animus furendi; in murder, malice; in crimes
intent) "cancels the presumption of intent," and works an acquittal; except in those
cases where the circumstances demand a conviction under the penal provisions
touching criminal negligence; and in cases where, under the provisions of article 1 of
the Penal Code one voluntarily committing a crime or misdemeanor incurs criminal
liability for any wrongful act committed by him, even though it be different from that
which he intended to commit.

3. No retroactive effect of laws

A retroactive law is one which takes away or impairs vested rights acquired under laws,
or creates a new obligation and imposes a new duty, or attaches a new disability, in
respect of transactions or considerations already past.

General rule is that laws have no retroactive effect. However, there are exceptions to
the general rule, such as procedural laws and curative laws, which are given retroactive
operation. This is because there are no vested rights that may attach to or arise from
procedural laws.

4. Waiver of rights
Waiver is defined as "a voluntary and intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a
known existing legal right, advantage, benefit, claim or privilege, which except for such
waiver the party would have enjoyed; the voluntary abandonment or surrender, by a
capable person, of a right known by him to exist, with the intent that such right shall be
surrendered and such person forever deprived of its benefit; or such conduct as
warrants an inference of the relinquishment of such right; or the intentional doing of an
act inconsistent with claiming it."

As to what rights and privileges may be waived, the authority is settled:

x x x the doctrine of waiver extends to rights and privileges of any character, and, since
the word ‘waiver’ covers every conceivable right, it is the general rule that a person may
waive any matter which affects his property, and any alienable right or privilege of which
he is the owner or which belongs to him or to which he is legally entitled, whether
secured by contract, conferred with statute, or guaranteed by constitution, provided
such rights and privileges rest in the individual, are intended for his sole benefit, do not
infringe on the rights of others, and further provided the waiver of the right or privilege is
not forbidden by law, and does not contravene public policy; and the principle is
recognized that everyone has a right to waive, and agree to waive, the advantage of a
law or rule made solely for the benefit and protection of the individual in his private
capacity, if it can be dispensed with and relinquished without infringing on any public
right, and without detriment to the community at large. x x x36 (Emphasis supplied and
citations omitted)

The three essential elements of a valid waiver are: (a) existence of a right; (b) the
knowledge of the existence thereof; and, (c) an intention to relinquish such right.

Under Article 6 of the Civil Code, rights may be waived, unless the waiver is contrary to
law, public order, public policy, morals or good customs, or prejudicial to a third person
with a right recognized by law.

Pursuant to Article 2035 of the Civil Code, no compromise (and by implication, waivers)
upon the following shall be valid: the civil status of persons, the validity of a marriage or
a legal separation, any ground for legal separation, future support, the jurisdiction of
courts, and future legitime.

As a general rule, those guilty of fraud, negligence, or delay in the performance of their
obligations and those who in any manner contravene the tenor thereof are liable for
damages. As to fraud, the rule is clear: Any waiver of an action for future fraud is void.
Responsibility arising from fraud is demandable in all obligations.

5. Forum shopping
Forum shopping is the institution of two or more actions or proceedings involving the
same parties for the same cause of action, either simultaneously or successively, on the
supposition that one or the other court would make a favorable disposition.

6. Res judicata
Res judicata refers to the rule that a final judgment or decree on the merits by a court of
competent jurisdiction is conclusive of the rights of the parties or their privies in all later
suits on all points and matters determined in the former suit.
The elements of res judicata are as follows: (1) the former judgment or order must be
final; (2) the judgment or order must be on the merits; (3) it must have been rendered by
a court having jurisdiction over the subject matter and the parties; (4) there must be,
between the first and the second action, identity of parties, of subject matter and cause
of action.

For res judicata to apply, all the above essential requisites must exist.

7. Litis pendentia
The elements of litis pendentia exist, and forum shopping as the logical consequence
thereof, considering that the two (2) cases arose from the same set of facts and involve
the same parties.

The requisites of [litis pendentia] are: (a) the identity of parties or at least such as
representing the same interests in both actions; (b) the identity of rights asserted and
the relief prayed for, the relief being founded on the same facts; and (c) the identity of
the two cases such that judgment in one, regardless of which party is successful,
would amount to res judicata in the other.

8. Laches vs Estoppel
Laches, in a general sense, is the failure or neglect for an unreasonable and
unexplained length of time, to do that which, by exercising due diligence, could or
should have been done earlier; it is negligence or omission to assert a right within a
reasonable time, warranting a presumption that the party entitled to assert it either has
abandoned it or declined to assert it.

There is no absolute rule as to what constitutes laches or staleness of demand; each

case is to be determined according to its particular circumstances. The question of
laches is addressed to the sound discretion of the court, and since laches is an
equitable doctrine, its application is controlled by equitable considerations. It cannot
work to defeat justice or to perpetrate fraud and injustice.

Laches is evidentiary in nature, a fact that cannot be established by mere allegations in

the pleadings. The following elements, as prescribed in the case of Go Chi Gun, et al. v.
Co Cho, et al., must be present to constitute laches:

(1) conduct on the part of the defendant, or of one under whom he claims, giving rise to
the situation of which complaint is made for which the complaint seeks a remedy;

(2) delay in asserting the complainant's rights, the complainant having had knowledge
or notice, of the defendant's conduct and having been afforded an opportunity to
institute a suit;

(3) lack of knowledge or notice on the part of the defendant that the complainant would
assert the right on which he bases his suit; and
(4) injury or prejudice to the defendant in the event relief is accorded to the complainant,
or the suit is not held to be barred.

The doctrine of laches or of "stale demands" is based upon grounds of public policy
which requires, for the peace of society, the discouragement of stale claims, and is not
a mere question of time but is principally a question of the inequity or unfairness of
permitting a right or claim to be enforced or asserted.

Estoppel rests on this rule: "Whenever a party has, by his own declaration, act or
omission, intentionally and deliberately led another to believe a particular thing true and
to act upon such belief, the party who made the declaration or performed the act or
omission cannot, in any litigation arising out of such declaration, act, or omission, be
permitted to falsify it.

Pursuant to Article 1431 of the Civil Code, "through estoppel, an admission or

representation is rendered conclusive upon the party making it, and cannot be denied or
disproved as against the person relying thereon."

Article 1433, in turn, classifies estoppel as either in pais (by conduct) or by deed. The
classification is based on the common classification of estoppels into equitable and
technical estoppel. In addition to estoppel in pais and by deed or record, estoppel may
be by laches. Thus, laches is but a form of estoppel. It is in the concept of laches that
estoppel is to be understood in this ruling of the Court.

The elements of estoppel by conduct are:

(1) that there must have been a representation or concealment of material facts;

(2) that the representation must have been made with knowledge

(3) that the party to whom it was made must have been ignorant of the truth of the
matter; and

(4) that it must have been made with intention that the other party would act upon it.

9. Customs, practice, and tradition

Article 5. Laws are abrogated only by other subsequent laws, and the disuse or any
custom or practice to the contrary shall not prevail against their observance.

This was the equivalent of Article 11 of the old Civil Code which provides that customs
which are contrary to law, public order or public policy shall not be countenanced.

10. Repeal on existing laws

Express or declared repeal means that the repeal is contained in a special provision of
a subsequent law. Implied or tacit repeal takes place when the provisions of the
subsequent law are incompatible or inconsistent with those of an earlier law.

"Art. 7. Laws are repealed only by subsequent ones, and their violation or non-
observance shall not be excused by disuse, or custom or practice to the contrary. When
the courts declared a law to be inconsistent with the Constitution, the former shall be
void and the latter shall govern. Administrative or executive acts, orders and regulations
shall be valid only when they are not contrary to the laws or the Constitution." (New Civil
Code of the Philippines)

According to Tolentino, there are two (2) kinds of repeal of laws: express repeal and
implied repeal. Express or declared repeal means that the repeal is contained in a
special provision of a subsequent law. Implied or tacit repeal takes place when the
provisions of the subsequent law are incompatible or inconsistent with those of an
earlier law.