TRANSPORTO vs.

MIJARES

1 CAR 2s 860 [1961]

 Facts:

 Plaintiff Antonio Transporto was a checker and sugar analyst of La Carlota-Ponteverdra Sugar Planter’s
Association
 defendant Hernani Mihares was a bench chemist of La Carlota Sugar Central.
 an employee of the sugar central, called plaintiffs attention to an unusually big-sized firecracker on the table
of Vicente Lim, chief of the Analysis Department.
 Plaintiff approached the table, examined the firecracker, big in size, thickly covered with cardboard in order
to scare the children, and that it was a fake firecracker and would not explode. He further stated that he
used to explode bigger-sized firecrackers, and that if held tightly, one would not get hurt by
the explosion thereof. His office companions laughed unbelievingly at such remark.
 Apparently irked by the laughter of his companions, plaintiff challenged them to a bet of P100.00, despite
the statement of Vicente Lim, the owner of said object, and of defendant that the firecracker was a real
one and would explode. Defendant accepted the bet but for P20.00 only. Plaintiff agreed.
 Defendant gave his P20.00 and plaintiff said that he had better explode the firecracker outside the
laboratory because there were people inside.
 Plaintiff and defendant stepped out, followed only by Ramon Pilado.
 Once, outside, plaintiff made a gesture of igniting the firecracker, but defendant stopped him, asking how
he could be sure that the plaintiff would not throw the firecracker at him after lighting the same.
Thereupon, plaintiff suggested that the firecracker be tied to his hand and they did.
 Plaintiff has also joked around with the firecracker in his calling the defendant a coward when he ran
scared.
 When the firecracker exploded, plaintiff exclaimed at defendant, “You lost,” and left.
 Pillado was the one who called the plaintiffs attention that his right hand was bleeding.
 Plaintiff said: “Well, it is an accident; it is my fault.”
o he was confined for 14 days. He paid P172.00 for the hospital room; P53.35 for medicine; and
P200.00 for subsistence and transportation expenses of his family in accompanying and attending
him in the hospital.
 Plaintiffs monthly salary was P150.00, which he failed to receive since the date of the incident, because
after he left the hospital, his employer, did not take him back. However, the employer employed his son.
 Upon his discharge from the hospital, plaintiff asked for monetary help from defendant,
o both agreed that defendant pay plaintiff P1,000.00;
o P500.00 of which was deposited on January 21, 1957
o plaintiff demanded payment of the balance of P500.00 but defendant simply told plaintiff that he
was already paid.

[Plaintiff thereafter filed an action for damages before the trial court but the latter dismissed the
case. On appeal, the Court of Appeals sustained the dismissal.,]

Ruling:

 “the plaintiff played the part of a bravado,” to use the language of the trial court 
 It was said that when plaintiff noticed that the fuse of the firecracker was ignited, he called-off the bet, but
the defendant refused.
 “if the plaintiff,” “did not like to take the risk after the fuse was ignited, he could have easily pulled out the
fuse with his left hand or he could have smothered it by smashing it on the ground.”

This case should, therefore, be governed by the doctrine of “volenti non fit injuria” (no wrong is done to him who
consents), that is, “that to which a person assents is not esteemed, in law, an injury,” the facts and circumstances
being such as to warrant the conclusion that the plaintiff, freely and voluntarily, with full knowledge of the nature
and extent of the risk he ran, impliedly agreed to incur it. When a person, knowing and appreciating the danger and
the risk, elects voluntarily to encounter them, he can no more maintain an action founded upon the statute than he
can in cases to which the statute has no application.  
“The principle that one who voluntarily assumed the risk of injury from a known danger is debarred from a recovery
is recognized in negligence cases. As stated, a plaintiff who by his conduct, has brought himself within the operation
of the maxim,  ‘volenti non fit injuria,’  cannot recover on the basis of the defendant’s negligence

It is said that one who knows, appreciates, and deliberately exposes himself to a danger ‘assumes the
risk’ thereof. One cannot deliberately incur an obvious risk of personal injury, especially when
preventive measures are at hand, and then hold the author of the danger for the ensuing injury.”