PAKISTAN AIRLINES vs.

OPLE
190 SCRA 90
(sa dela banda transcript ra ni nga digest)

Facts: Petitioner Pakistan International Airlines Corporation (PIA) executed in Manila

two separate contracts of employment with flight attendants Farrales and Mamasig.
The contracts provided, among others, that the agreements contained therein shall
be construed and governed by laws of Pakistan, and only the courts of Karachi,
Pakistan shall have jurisdiction to consider any matter arising out or under the
agreement.

Roughly 1 year and 4 months prior to the expiration of the contracts of employment,
the employee were informed that their services would be terminated. Consequently,
Farrales and Mamasig instituted before the DOLE a complaint for illegal dismissal.
The Regional Director ordered the reinstatement of the said employees, hence, the
instant petition of certiorari.

Held: Petitioner PLA cannot take refuge in paragraph 10 of its employment

agreement which specifies, firstly, the law of Pakistan, as the applicable law of the
agreement and, secondly, lays venue for settlement of any dispute arising out of or in
connection with the agreement only in courts of Karachi, Pakistan. The first clause of
paragraph 10 cannot be invoked to prevent the application of Philippine labor laws
and regulations to the subject matter of this case, i.e, the employer-employee
relationship between petitioner PIA and private respondents. We have already
pointed out the relationship is much affected with public interest and that the
otherwise applicable Philippine laws and regulations cannot be rendered illusory by
the agreeing upon some other law to govern their relationship.

Neither may petitioner invoke the second clause of paragraph 10, specifying the
Karachi courts as the sole venue for the settlement of disputes between the
contracting parties. Even a cursory scrutiny of the relevant circumstances of this
case will show the multiple and substantive contracts between the Philippine law and
Philippine courts, on the one hand, and the substantive contacts between the parties,
upon the other: the contract was not only executed in the Philippines, it was also
performed here, at least partially. Private respondents are Philippine citizens and
residents, while petitioner, although a foreign corporation, is licensed to do business
(and actually doing business), and hence, resident in the Philippines. Lastly, private
respondents were based in the Philippines in between their assigned flights to the
Middle East and Europe. All the above contacts point to the Philippine courts and
administrative agencies as a proper forum for the resolution of contractual disputes
between the parties. Under these circumstances, paragraph 10 of the employment
agreement cannot be given effect so as to oust Philippine agencies and courts of the
jurisdiction vested upon them by the Philippine law.

Finally, and in any event, the petitioner PIA did not undertake to plead and prove the
contents of Pakistan law on the matter; it must therefore be presume that the
applicable provisions of the law of Pakistan are the same as the applicable provisions
of Philippine law.

Intercontinental Hotels Corporation (Puerto Rico), Appellant, v. Jack Golden,

Respondent.
 Court of Appeals of the State of New York.
Argued September 30, 1964.
Decided November 19, 1964.
(ako gyud gahimu ani. Tibay kay ko. Naa ni dissenting opinion, wa nko giapil)

Facts:
1. Defendant was a guest at plaintiff's Intercontinental Hotel in Puerto Rico. During his
stay there, in an attempt to turn chance into fortune, he played on credit
generously furnished by plaintiff at the dice tables in the casino conducted by the
hotel, lost and, when he ascertained the extent of his indebtedness, reneged.
Following the loss of $6,000 in cash which defendant allegedly brought with him,
plaintiff advanced chips to the defendant in the sum of $12,000 which he eventually
also lost. On December 14, 1960, he delivered to plaintiff his check for $3,000, dated
December 17, 1960, payable at the Manufacturers Trust Co. in New York City, in part
payment of his gambling debt. The check was not honored when presented for
payment. For the remaining $9,000 defendant had given plaintiff 13 I. O. U.'s. At Trial
Term, plaintiff recovered judgment on the check and the I. O. U.'s for the full $12,000
plus interest of $1,102.50.
2. Strangely enough, no appellate court in this State has ruled on the question of
whether there can be recovery in New York on a professional gambling debt incurred
in a jurisdiction where gambling is legalized. * It is conceded that in Puerto Rico
gambling has been legalized (Laws of Puerto Rico Ann., tit. 15, ch. 5, 71-84) and
that plaintiff's casino was duly licensed at the time defendant used its facilities.
3. Subdivision 1 of section 9 of article I of the New York State Constitution provides that
"no lottery or the sale of lottery tickets, pool selling, book-making, or any other kind
of gambling, except pari-mutuel betting on horse races * * * shall hereafter be
authorized or allowed within this state." The exception as to pari-mutuel betting was
incorporated by amendment in 1939; and, by an amendment in 1957, subdivision 2
was added to section 9 to authorize, upon a local option basis, the conduct of games
of chance commonly known as bingo and lotto. More particular reference to these
amendments will be made hereinafter.

Issue: whether the courts of this State must deny access to a party seeking to enforce
obligations validly entered into in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and enforcible under
Puerto Rican law.

Ruling:
Once again we are faced with the question of when our courts may refuse to enforce a
foreign right, though valid where acquired, on the ground that its "enforcement is contrary
to [the public] policy of the forum".

Since these gambling debts were validly contracted in Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican law
provides a remedy for their enforcement, absent a clear showing that the enforcement of
the causes of action here would "offend our sense of justice or menace the public welfare",
we may not withhold aid. We do not think that public policy forbids us to enforce these
contracts.
Substantially all of the commentators agree that foreign-based rights should be enforced
unless the judicial enforcement of such a contract would be the approval of a transaction
which is inherently vicious, wicked or immoral, and shocking to the prevailing moral sense.

Applying this test we find decisions in this State involving gambling transactions which put
this reasoning into practice. Over 100 years ago this court held in Thatcher v. Morris (11 N.Y.
437 [1854]) that a contract involving lottery tickets if legal and valid without the State would
be upheld though illegal in New York. In Harris v. White suit was permitted for wages earned
in out-of-State horse races at a time when horse racing was illegal in the State of New York.
In Ormes v. Dauchy (82 N.Y. 443 [1880]) suit was upheld for commissions earned by placing
extrastate lottery advertisements in out-of-State newspapers. Thus, aware of the common-
law rule which barred the enforcement of gambling contracts and conscious that they were
illegal and void in almost all the States of this country, the courts of this State took the
position, even in Victorian times, that there was no strong public policy to prevent the
enforcement of such contracts according to the law of the place of performance. There is
nothing suggested by the respondent which should persuade us that Judge CARDOZO was
wrong when he said in Loucks v. Standard Oil Co. (224 N.Y. 99, 111 [1918], supra): "The
courts are not free to refuse to enforce a foreign right at the pleasure of the judges, to suit
the individual notion of expediency or fairness. They do not close their doors unless help
would violate some * * * prevalent conception of good morals".

It has, however, been urged that suits on gambling debts contracted validly elsewhere are
contrary to two public policies of this State, i.e., in this jurisdiction gamblers are outlaws, and
all gambling contracts made with them are void. Worthy though such considerations be,
they apply only to transactions governed by our domestic law. This court gave thought to
such arguments recently and rejected them as an insufficient basis for projecting domestic
philosophies of law to decision making in actions based on transactions governed by the law
of another State.

Public policy is not determinable by mere reference to the laws of the forum alone. Strong
public policy is found in prevailing social and moral attitudes of the community. In this
sophisticated season the enforcement of the rights of the plaintiff in view of the weight of
authority would not be considered repugnant to the "public policy of this State". It seems to
us that, if we are to apply the strong public policy test to the enforcement of the plaintiff's
rights under the gambling laws of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, we should measure
them by the prevailing social and moral attitudes of the community which is reflected not
only in the decisions of our courts in the Victorian era but sharply illustrated in the changing
attitudes of the People of the State of New York.

The legalization of pari-mutuel betting and the operation of bingo games, as well as a strong
movement for legalized off-track betting, indicate that the New York public does not consider
authorized gambling a violation of "some prevalent conception of good morals, [or] some
deep-rooted tradition of the common weal."

The trend in New York State demonstrates an acceptance of licensed gambling transactions
as a morally acceptable activity, not objectionable under the prevailing standards of lawful
and approved social conduct in a community. Our newspapers quote the odds on horse
races, football games, basketball games and print the names of the winners of the Irish
Sweepstakes and the New Hampshire lottery. Informed public sentiment in New York is only
against unlicensed gambling, which is unsupervised, unregulated by law and which affords
no protection to customers and no assurance of fairness or honesty in the operation of the
gambling devices.

In the present case there is no indication that the evils of gambling, which New York
prohibits and Puerto Rico has licensed, will spill over into our community if these debts are
enforced in New York courts. The New York constitutional provisions were adopted with a
view toward protecting the family man of meager resources from his own imprudence at the
gaming tables.

Puerto Rico has made provision for this kind of imprudence by allowing the court to reduce
gambling obligations or even decline to enforce them altogether, if the court in its discretion
finds that the losses are "[in an] amount [which] may exceed the customs of a good father of
a family." (Laws of Puerto Rico Ann., tit. 31, 4774.) This regulation is consistent with New
York policy and would be properly considered in any case before a New York court which may
be asked to enforce a Puerto Rican gambling debt.

There is nothing immoral per se in the contract before us, but injustice would result if
citizens of this State were allowed to retain the benefits of the winnings in a State where
such gambling is legal, but to renege if they were losers.

The cases relied on by the respondent miss the mark.

In the case of Mertz v. Mertz (271 N.Y. 466 [1936]) Judge LEHMAN, writing for the court, said
that "a disability to sue attached by our law to the person of a wife becomes an anomaly if
another State can confer upon a wife, even though residing here, capacity to sue in our
courts upon a cause of action arising there" (p. 474; emphasis added). As distinguished from
the present case, in Mertz the court was faced with this State's interest in the marital status
situated here. As a practical matter, all the significant contacts of the case were with New
York and the language of the opinion indicates that the court was in reality there making
a choice of law decision of the kind that this court today follows under the nominal heading
of the "contacts" doctrine.
In Flegenheimer v. Brogan (284 N.Y. 268 [1940]) the court nominally invoked the public
policy doctrine, but was only concerned with the operation of the liquor control laws
in this State. The court did not find the policy of other States so unjust or antisocial as to
oblige the courts of our State to deny access to litigants seeking to enforce rights validly
created there.
This court refused to enforce a tax claim asserted here by the plaintiff municipality in City of
Philadelphia [Pa.] v. Cohen(11 N.Y.2d 401 [1962], cert. den. 371 U.S. 934 [1963]) but in
doing so relied heavily upon the specific terms of our statute which calls for the enforcement
of such tax claims arising in other States if such other State will reciprocate on a New York
tax claim. Pennsylvania, unlike most States, has no such reciprocity provision. Watts v.
Malatesta (262 N.Y. 80 [1933]) was concerned with a New York statute and a situation
involving betting in this State that was clearly unlawful under the statute.

Since a gambling debt is unenforcible when made in Nevada, courts in other States have no
public policy issue to pass upon, and refusals elsewhere to enforce these claims are a mere
application of Nevada law. (Hamilton v. Abadjian, 30 Cal.2d 49 [1947] and the Nevada cases
cited therein.) Nevada courts refuse to enforce gambling debts since the statutes of that
State, while specifically authorizing licensed gambling casinos (as an exception to the policy
there that gambling generally is illegal), make no provision for their enforcement. (West
Indies v. First Nat. Bank of Nevada, 67 Nev. 13.) In Puerto Rico the situation is different.
There is specific statutory provision for the enforcement of legal gambling debts there (Laws
of Puerto Rico Ann., tit. 31, 4774) and the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico has upheld the
enforcement of such claims. (United Hotels of Puerto Rico v. Willig, Puerto Rico Bar Assn.,
No. 172 [Oct. 9, 1963], supra.) The refusal of courts to enforce Nevada gambling debts has
no application to the case before us.

We think, therefore, that this case falls within the consistent practice of enforcing rights
validly created by the laws of a sister State which do not tend to disturb our local laws or
corrupt the public.