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    04 Teague vs. Fernandez Digest

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    Maria Aurora Camille
    This case involved a stampede that occurred during a fire at a vocational school called the Realistic Institute, which resulted in the death of one student, Lourdes Fernandez. Her siblings filed a lawsuit against the owner of the Institute, Mercedes Teague. The appellate court found Teague negligent because the building that housed the Institute did not comply with a city ordinance requiring two stairways due to only having one stairway constructed. The court ruled that the violation of the ordinance was the proximate cause of Fernandez's death, as the ordinance was intended to prevent overcrowding on stairways that could lead to danger during emergencies.

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    04 Teague vs. Fernandez Digest

    Uploaded by

    Maria Aurora Camille
    238 views1 page
    This case involved a stampede that occurred during a fire at a vocational school called the Realistic Institute, which resulted in the death of one student, Lourdes Fernandez. Her siblings filed a lawsuit against the owner of the Institute, Mercedes Teague. The appellate court found Teague negligent because the building that housed the Institute did not comply with a city ordinance requiring two stairways due to only having one stairway constructed. The court ruled that the violation of the ordinance was the proximate cause of Fernandez's death, as the ordinance was intended to prevent overcrowding on stairways that could lead to danger during emergencies.

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    This case involved a stampede that occurred during a fire at a vocational school called the Realistic Institute, which resulted in the death of one student, Lourdes Fernandez. Her siblings filed a lawsuit against the owner of the Institute, Mercedes Teague. The appellate court found Teague negligent because the building that housed the Institute did not comply with a city ordinance requiring two stairways due to only having one stairway constructed. The court ruled that the violation of the ordinance was the proximate cause of Fernandez's death, as the ordinance was intended to prevent overcrowding on stairways that could lead to danger during emergencies.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    238 views1 page

    04 Teague vs. Fernandez Digest

    Uploaded by

    Maria Aurora Camille
    This case involved a stampede that occurred during a fire at a vocational school called the Realistic Institute, which resulted in the death of one student, Lourdes Fernandez. Her siblings filed a lawsuit against the owner of the Institute, Mercedes Teague. The appellate court found Teague negligent because the building that housed the Institute did not comply with a city ordinance requiring two stairways due to only having one stairway constructed. The court ruled that the violation of the ordinance was the proximate cause of Fernandez's death, as the ordinance was intended to prevent overcrowding on stairways that could lead to danger during emergencies.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 1

    Teague vs.

    Fernandez
    G.R. No. L-29745 June 4, 1973

    FACTS:

    The Realistic Institute, admittedly owned and operated by defendant-appellee Mercedes


    M. Teague was a vocational school. A fire broke out in a store for surplus materials located about
    ten meters away from the institute. Panic ensued and the students, with the exception of the few
    who made use of fire-escapes kept on rushing and pushing their way through the stairs, thereby
    causing stampede therein. Indeed, no part of the Gil-Armi Building caught fire. But, after the
    panic was over, four students, including Lourdes Fernandez, a sister of plaintiffs-appellants, were
    found dead and several others injured on account of the stampede.

    The deceased's five brothers and sisters filed an action for damages against Mercedes
    M. Teague as owner and operator of Realistic Institute. The appellate court reversed the trial
    courts ruling sentenced the defendant to pay damages. It found the Petitioner negligent and that
    such negligence was the proximate cause of the death of Lourdes Fernandez. This finding of
    negligence is based primarily on the fact that the provision of Section 491 Of the Revised
    Ordinances of the City of Manila had not been complied with in connection with the construction
    and use of the Gil-Armi building. The alleged violation of the ordinance consisted in the fact that
    the second storey of the Gil-Armi building had only one stairway, 1.5 meters wide, instead of two
    of at least 1.2 meters each, although at the time of the fire the owner of the building had a second
    stairway under construction.

    The petitioner relates the chain of events that resulted in the death of Lourdes Fernandez
    as follows: (1) violation of ordinance; (2) fire at a neighboring place; (3) shouts of "Fire!, Fire!"; (4)
    panic in the Institute; (5) stampede; and (6) injuries and death. As thus projected the violation of
    the ordinance, it is argued, was only a remote cause, if at all, and cannot be the basis of liability
    since there intervened a number of independent causes which produced the injury complained of.

    ISSUES:

    Whether the violation of the ordinance is the proximate cause?

    HELD:

    Yes. It is true that the petitioner's non-compliance with the ordinance in question was
    ahead of and prior to the other events in point of time, in the sense that it was coetaneous with its
    occupancy of the building. But the violation was a continuing one, since the ordinance was a
    measure of safety designed to prevent a specific situation which would pose a danger to the
    occupants of the building.

    The violation of a statute or ordinance is not rendered remote as the cause of an injury by
    the intervention of another agency if the occurrence of the accident, in the manner in which it
    happened, was the very thing which the statute or ordinance was intended to prevent. The
    overcrowding at the stairway was the proximate cause and that it was precisely what the
    ordinance intended to prevent by requiring that there be two stairways instead of only one. The
    principle of proximate cause applies to such violation.

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