Prescription: (Allied Banking Corporation vs. Court of Appeals, 178 SCRA 526 (1989) )
Prescription: (Allied Banking Corporation vs. Court of Appeals, 178 SCRA 526 (1989) )
Prescription: (Allied Banking Corporation vs. Court of Appeals, 178 SCRA 526 (1989) )
Prescription can either be acquisitive or extinctive. Under the Civil Code, prescription is
a means of acquiring “ownership and other real rights through the lapse of time in the
manner and under the conditions laid down by law. In the same way, rights and
conditions are lost by prescription” (Article 1106).
When a quasi-delict occurs, the plaintiff or the injured party may claim damages against
the respondent or the one who inflicted the injury. In order to claim, the plaintiff must
prove that there was damage to the plaintiff, the respondent was negligent in the act or
omission that caused the damage, and there is a connection of cause and effect
between the negligence and the damage inflicted.
As such, prescription of action can be availed of as one of those defenses in negligence
cases.
Article 1146 of the Civil Code provides when will presecriptive period commences. It
states that an action for quasi-delict must be instituted within four (4) years and such is
counted from the date of the accident. Thus, the prescriptive period begins from the day
the quasi-delict is committed.
The Supremce Court explained in Kramer, Jr. vs Court of Appeals that the right of
action accrues when there exists a cause of action, and such cause of action consists of
three (3) elements which must concur: a) a right in favor of the plaintiff by whatever
means and under whatever law it arises or is created; b) an obligation on the part of the
defendant to respect such right; and c) an act or omission on the part of such defendant
violative of the right of the plaintiff. Consequently, the period of prescription must be
counted when the last element of commission of an act or omission violative of the right
of the plaintiff, which is the time when the cause of action arises.
The Civil Code of the Philippines specifies the sources of obligation, thus:
(1) Law;
(2) Contract;
(3) Quasi-Contracts;
(A) The prescription of action based on obligations created by law [1] and
contracts [2] is ten years (Art. 1144);
(B) The prescription of actions based on quasi-contract [3] prescribes in six years
(Art. 1145); and
(C) The prescription of civil actions based on quasi-delict [5] prescribes in four
years (Art. 1146).
Except for civil actions based on defamation (Art. 1147), the Civil Code of the
Philippines does not specifically provide for a prescriptive period for obligations arising
from delict [4]. However there is the catch-all provision of Article 1149, which provides
that:
All other actions whose periods are not fixed in this Code or in other laws must be
brought within five years from the time the right of action accrues.