Urbano v. Intermediate Appellate Court

On October 23, 1980, in San Fabian, Pangasinan, Filomeno Urbano found his stored palay flooded by an overflowing irrigation canal. Marcelo Javier admitted he had opened it, and they quarrelled. Urbano hacked Javier with a bolo, wounding his right palm as he parried the blow. He then hit Javier's leg with the back of the bolo, until Urbano's daughter held him back. A doctor treated the 2-inch incised wound, and the medico-legal certificate estimated seven to nine days of incapacity. On October 27, before the police and a barangay councilman, the two settled. Urbano paid P700 for medical expenses and Javier forgave him. On November 14, the 22nd day after the hacking, Javier was rushed to hospital with lockjaw and convulsions caused by tetanus. He died the next day. Urbano was convicted of homicide, and the Intermediate Appellate Court affirmed and raised the indemnity to P30,000. He sought a new trial on a barangay captain's affidavit that Javier had been seen catching fish in shallow irrigation canals on November 5, but this was denied.

1. 1Whether an efficient intervening cause between the wounding and the death relieves Urbano of liability for homicide.

Acquitted of homicide (Gutierrez, Jr., J.). Under Article 4(1), an offender is liable for the natural and logical consequences of his felony. Adopting Bataclan v. Medina, proximate cause is that which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces the injury, and without which the result would not have occurred. The Court relied on the medical literature. Tetanus incubates in 2 to 56 days. Mild tetanus has an incubation of at least 14 days and an onset time of more than 6 days, while severe tetanus has a short incubation and an onset of 72 hours or less. Javier's symptoms appeared 22 days after the wounding, and he died about a day later. Had the wound been infected when inflicted, the tetanus should have been mild. The more credible conclusion was that the severe tetanus that killed him came from an infection a few days before his death. The evidence thus left a distinct possibility that the infection was an efficient intervening cause, distinct and foreign to the crime. Since guilt must be proved beyond reasonable doubt, the wound may have been only the remote cause. Urbano was at most guilty of slight physical injuries, but that liability was extinguished by the barangay settlement allowed for minor offenses under P.D. 1508. The ruling was limited to criminal liability. Under Article 29 of the Civil Code, an acquittal on reasonable doubt does not necessarily extinguish civil liability, which the heirs could pursue.