Vda De Bataclan vs Medina

GR No. L-10126, October 22, 1957

Montemayor, J.

Facts:
At about 2:00 in the morning, while the bus was running very fast on highway, one of the front tires
burst and the vehicle began to zigzag until it fell into a canal and turned turtle. Four of its passengers
could not get out of the overturned bus. It appeared that as the bus overturned, gasoline began to leak
from the tank, spreading over and permeating the body of the bus and the ground under and around it.
About 10 men, one of them carrying a lighted torch, approached the overturned bus to help those left
therein, and almost immediately a fierce fire started, burning the four passengers trapped inside it.

Issue:
Whether or not the proximate cause of death by Bataclan, including other passengers, was the
overturning of the bus or the fire that burned the bus

Ruling:
The cause of death of Bataclan was due to the overturning of the bus because then the vehicle turned,
the leaking of the gasoline from the tank was not unnatural or unexpected. The torches carries by the
would-be helpers are not to be blames. It is just but natural for the villagers to respond to the call for
help from the passengers and since it is a rural area which did not have flashlights, torches are the
natural source of lighting. Further, the smell of the gas could have been all over the place yet the driver
and the conductor failed to provide warning about the said fact to villagers.