PH Law Digest

Ponente: BELLOSILLO J. Petition for review on certiorari of a decision of the CA Facts: In Sept 1988, congressional hearings on the transport crisis lead to the organization of the First National Conference on Land Transportation (FNCLT). The conference was to be participated in by the private sector in the transport industry and government agencies concerned. Its objectives: •    to find ways and means to solve the transportation crisis •    to draft an omnibus bill that would embody a long-term land transportation policy for presentation to Congress 28 Feb 1989: Francisco Wenceslao was elected Executive Director of FNCLT. As such, he wrote numerous solicitation letters to the business community for the support of the conference. Between May and July 1989 a series of articles written by Arturo Borjal was published in his column Jaywalker in The Philippine Star. The articles dealt with the alleged anomalous activities of an "organizer of a conference"...

Ponente: TINGA J.  Petition for review on certiorari of a decision of the CA Facts: On 13 Oct 1991, Segundo Lim caused the publication of records of criminal cases filed against Cirse Choy Torralba as well as photographs of the latter being arrested in a plush uptown hotel in Cebu. These were published by means of a one-page advertisement paid for by Lim in the Sunday Post, a weekly publication edited and published by   Ciriaco Boy Guingguing. The Sunday Post was circulated in the province of Bohol, as well as in the Visayas and Mindanao. Cirse Choy Torralba was a broadcast journalist who handled two programs for radio stations DYLA and DYFX. Consequently, Torralba filed   before RTC Cebu City a criminal complaint for libel against Lim and Guinguing. He asked for moral, compensatory and exemplary damages + attorneys fees. He argued that: •       The publication placed him in public contempt and ridicule. •     ...

Ponente: MENDOZA J. Appeal from a decision of the RTC Manila Facts: Petitioner Rodolfo R. Vasquez is a resident of the Tondo Foreshore Area. Sometime in April 1986, he and some 37 families from the area went to see then National Housing Authority (NHA) General Manager Lito Atienza regarding their complaint against their Barangay Chairman, Jaime Olmedo, a public official. After their meeting with Atienza and other NHA officials, Petitioner and his companions were met and interviewed by newspaper reporters at the NHA compound concerning their complaint. The next day, April 22, 1986, the following excerpts of the news article appeared in the newspaper Ang Tinig ng Masa. In the article, published were supposed allegations by Vasquez that (1) “nakipagsabwatan umano si Chairman Jaime Olmedo upang makamkam ang may 14 na lote ng lupa”; (2) ang mga lupa ay ilegal na patituluhan, nagawa ito ni Olmedo sa pakikipagsabwatan sa mga project manager at legal officers ng NHA; (3) kasangkot di...

Ponente:  FELICIANO J. A petition for certiorari to review the order of the RTC Makati Facts: Petitioner Hal McElroy an Australian film maker, and his movie production company, Petitioner Ayer Productions pty Ltd. envisioned, sometime in 1987, the filming for commercial viewing and for Philippine and international release, the historic peaceful struggle of the Filipinos at EDSA. The proposed motion picture was entitled "The Four Day Revolution". In a letter dated 16 December 1987, McElroy informed Juan Ponce Enrile (JPE) about the projected motion picture enclosing a synopsis of it. JPE replied that “he would not and will not approve of the use, appropriation, reproduction and/or exhibition of his name, or picture, or that of any member of his family in any cinema or television production, film xxx". Petitioners acceded to this demand. 23 Feb 1988: JPE filed a Complaint with application for TRO and Writ of Preliminary Injunction with the RTC Makati, seeking t...

Ponente: REHNQUIST, C.J. Certiorari to the US CA for the 4th Circuit Facts: Respondent Jerry Falwell, a nationally known minister who has been active as a commentator on politics and public affairs, sued Petitioner Hustler Magazine, Inc. ("HUSTLER")  and its publisher, Petitioner Larry Flynt, to recover damages for invasion of privacy, libel, and intentional infliction of emotional distress arising from the publication of an advertisement “parody”,  which, among other things, portrayed him as having engaged in a drunken incestuous rendezvous with his mother in an outhouse. The District Court directed a verdict against respondent on the privacy claim, and submitted the other two claims to a jury. The jury found for petitioners on the defamation claim, but found for respondent on the claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress and awarded damages: $100k in compensatory damages,; $50k in punitive damages. On appeal, the US CA for the 4th Circuit affirmed the judgm...

Ponente: HARLAN J. Certiorari to the US CA for the 5th Circuit Facts: 1st Case:  Curtis Pub. Co. v. Butts Saturday Evening Post published an article entitled “The Story of  a College Football Fix” which accused Wally Butts of conspiring to fix a football game between the University of Georgia and the University of Alabama, played in 1962.  Butts was then the athletic director of UG. The article purported that George Burnett, an Atlanta insurance salesman, had accidentally overheard, because of electronic error, a telephone conversation between Butts and the head coach of the UA, Paul Bryant, which took place approximately one week prior to the game, wherein Butts  gave to the coach Georgia's plays, defensive patterns, “all the significant secrets Georgia's football team possessed." Butts brought a diversity libel in the federal courts in Georgia seeking compensatory and punitive damages. Butts' contention was that the magazine had departed greatly from the standards ...

Ponente: POWELL, J. Facts: In 1968, a Chicago police officer, Richard Nuccio, shot and killed Ronald Nelson. After the officer was convicted of second-degree murder, the victim's family retained a lawyer, Elmer Gertz, to represent them in civil action against the officer. A year later, American Opinion, a publication of the John Birch Society, ran a series of articles falsely alleging that the existence of a Communist conspiracy to discredit local police agencies and thus facilitate their replacement by a national police force that could more effectively implement the dictatorship they planned to impose on the country. One of those touched on the Nuccio case, claiming that the officer had been framed at his criminal trial and making strong allegations about Gertz. It claimed that he had orchestrated Nuccio's conviction and that he was a member of various communist front organizations. It further implied that he had a lengthy criminal record himself and used various anti-communi...

Ponente: BRENAN J. Certiorari to the Supreme Court of Alabama ISSUE: to determine the extent to which the constitutional protections for speech and press limit a State's power to award damages in a libel action brought by a public official against critics of his official conduct Facts: L. B. Sullivan is one of the three elected Commissioners of the City of Montgomery, Alabama. He brought a civil libel action against 4 individual petitioners, who are Negroes and Alabama clergymen, and against petitioner the New York Times Company. Respondent's complaint that he had been libeled by statements in a full-page advertisement carried in the New York Times on March 29, 1960.   Entitled "Heed Their Rising Voices." paragraph 3: In Montgomery, Alabama, after students sang "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" on the State Capitol steps, their leaders were expelled from school, and truckloads of police armed with shotguns and tear-gas ringed the Alabama State Colle...