[ G.R. No. 34313. January 18, 1932 ] 56 Phil. 462
[ G.R. No. 34313. January 18, 1932 ]
FELIPE BELARMINO, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. C. C. HAMMOND, INSULAR AUDITOR OF THE PHILIPPINES, AND THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES. D E C I S I O N
AVANCEÑA, C.J.:
Felipe Belarmino, the plaintiff, had been operating a motor truck since May, 1929, and in June, 1930, defendant Insular Auditor recommended to the Director of Public Works, the other defendant, the suspension of the operation of his truck, and the latter ordered the.suspension.
The plaintiff alleges that he has paid the registration fee for this truck, and asks the court to enjoin the defendants from acting upon the suspension. The defendants contend that he has not paid the fee, and in a counterclaim ask that he be ordered to pay the Government P95.84, the amount of such fee.
After reviewing the evidence, we find that the plaintiff has paid the 1929 registration fee for the truck in question. The plaintiff’s son, Amador, testified that in obedience to his father, he went to the Bureau of Public Works to pay the fee, and delivered the money to an employee in charge of one of the windows, who gave him a receipt. He took it to another window, where he was given the number plate by another employee. Some months later, the plaintiff received the registration certificate by mail. The plaintiff, however, says that he has lost the receipt and therefore was unable to produce it at the trial.
Salustiano Reyes, superintendent of the automobile division of the Bureau of Public Works, who testified for the defendants, says that according to the Motor Vehicle Register, the 1929 fee for this truck was paid, the official receipt for it being No. 6291289. Such an entry in the book, he says, is not made until the fee is paid and the plate is not delivered unless the receipt is presented.
The defense has shown that the duplicate copy of receipt No. 6291289, in the Bureau of Public Works, is made out in another person’s name for the amount of only Pl; this is not what the plaintiff had to pay for the registration of his truck.
The testimony of the plaintiff’s son, who paid the registration fee for the truck, proves that such fee was paid. He is borne out by the entry in the official book of the Bureau of Public Works, and by the fact that the plaintiff received the proper number plate; for even according to the evidence furnished by the defendants, that entry could not have been made in the book if such fees had not been paid, and the plate would not have been delivered if the official receipt of this payment had not been exhibited at the proper window; and these circumstances take on added weight from the additional fact that in these transactions, several employees took part.
The fact that the plaintiff has lost the official, receipt, which is not at all unlikely, does not justify a contrary conclusion. Nor does the fact that the duplicate receipt was made out in somebody else’s name do so, for this may be due to misconduct on the part of some Public Works employees, independent of the plaintiff. Salustiano Reyes testified that cases had come to light in his office of duplicate receipts made out for different amounts from those collected. We are convinced that this is one of those cases, for the plaintiff has proved that he paid the proper fee.
Not only does the entry in the official book, and the delivery of the number plate corroborate the plaintiff’s son; but they are incompatible with the contention that the payment was not made. There is nothing to show that the entry was a mistake, and even if it were, the plaintiff has not been shown to have been aware of the mistake so that he could take advantage of it by pretending to have paid, without having done so. Nothing short of an unlawful connivance between the plaintiff and the employee who made the entry would justify our finding that the payment was not made, although the books show it was. The record contains no proof of such connivance, and it cannot be justly presumed.
Holding, as we do, that the plaintiff paid the fee for the operation of his motor truck, the fact that the employee who received the money did not turn it in as he should have done, is no reason for requiring the plaintiff to pay a second time. The money was received by an employee in the performance of his official duties, and this was all the plaintiff was bound to see to. He was by no means under obligation to watch and see what the man did with the money, nor would he have been justified, to protect himself, in interfering with the business of the bureau in order to make sure that the employee deposited the money in the safe.
The judgment appealed from is affirmed so far as it confirms and declares permanent the preliminary injunction issued against the defendants, and reversed so far as it order the plaintiff to pay the defendants the sum of P95.84, for the plaintiff is hereby absolved from the counterclaim; without special pronouncement as to costs. So ordered.
Street, Villamor, Romualdez, and Villa-Real, JJ., concur.
JOHNSON, J.:
I vote to confirm.