RODOLFO N. REGALA, Petitioner, versus FEDERICO P.

CARIN, Respondent
FACTS:
Petitioner and respondent are adjacent neighbors. When petitioner decided to renovate his
one storey residence by constructing a second floor, with a terrace atop the dividing wall, he
under the guise of merely building an extension to his residence, approached respondent
sometime for permission to bore a hole through a perimeter wall shared by both their respective
properties, to which respondent verbally consented on condition that petitioner would clean the
area affected by the work.
In the course of the construction of the second floor, respondent and his wife Marietta
suffered from the dust and dirt which fell on their property and forcing him to, among other
things, shut some of the windows of his house. As petitioner failed to address the problem
respondent filed a letter-complaint with the Office of the City Engineer and Building Official of
Las Pias City. Respondent related that, despite the lack of a building permit for the construction
of a second floor, petitioner had demolished the dividing wall, failed to clean the debris falling
therefrom, allowed his laborers to come in and out of his (respondents) property without
permission by simply jumping over the wall, and trampled on his vegetable garden; and that
despite his protestations, petitioner persisted in proceeding with the construction.
As no satisfactory agreement was reached at the last barangay conciliation proceedings
and petitioner having continued the construction work despite issuance of several stop-work
notices from the City Engineers Office for lack of building permit, respondent filed a complaint
for moral and exemplary damages against petitioner before the RTC.
Applying Article 2176 of the Civil Code on quasi-delicts, the trial court ruled that
petitioner was at fault and negligent for failing to undertake sufficient safety measures to prevent
inconvenience and damage to respondent to thus entitle respondent to moral and exemplary
damages. On appeal by petitioner, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial courts decision.
ISSUE:
Whether respondent is entitled to Moral damages?
HELD:
RESPONDENT IS NOT ENTITLED TO MORAL DAMAGES.
In prayers for moral damages, recovery is more an exception rather than the rule. Moral
damages are not meant to be punitive but are designed to compensate and alleviate the physical
suffering, mental anguish, fright, serious anxiety, besmirched reputation, wounded feelings,
moral shock, social humiliation, and similar harm unjustly caused to a person. To be entitled to
such an award, the claimant must satisfactorily prove that he has suffered damages and that
the injury causing it has sprung from any of the cases listed in Articles 2219 and 2220 of the
Civil Code. Moreover, the damages must be shown to be the proximate result of a wrongful act

or omission. The claimant must thus establish the factual basis of the damages and its causal tie
with the acts of the defendant.
In fine, an award of moral damages calls for the presentation of 1) evidence of
besmirched reputation or physical, mental or psychological suffering sustained by the
claimant; 2) a culpable act or omission factually established; 3) proof that the wrongful act or
omission of the defendant is the proximate cause of the damages sustained by the claimant; and
4) the proof that the act is predicated on any of the instances expressed or envisioned by Article
2219 and Article 2220 of the Civil Code.

In the present case, respondent failed to establish by clear and convincing evidence that
the injuries he sustained were the proximate effect of petitioners act or omission. It thus
becomes necessary to instead look into the manner by which petitioner carried out his
renovations to determine whether this was directly responsible for any distress respondent may
have suffered since the law requires that a wrongful or illegal act or omission must have
preceded the damages sustained by the claimant.

It bears noting that petitioner was engaged in the lawful exercise of his property rights
to introduce renovations to his abode. While he initially did not have a building permit and
may have misrepresented his real intent when he initially sought respondents consent, the lack
of the permit was inconsequential since it only rendered petitioner liable to administrative
sanctions or penalties.

The testimony of petitioner and his witnesses, specifically Architect Punzalan,

demonstrates that they had actually taken measures to prevent, or at the very least, minimize
the damage to respondents property occasioned by the construction work. Architect Punzalan
details how upon reaching an agreement with petitioner for the construction of the second floor,
he (Punzalan) surveyed petitioners property based on the Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) and
Tax Declarations and found that the perimeter wall was within the confines of petitioners
property; that he, together with petitioner, secured the consent of the neighbors (including
respondent) prior to the start of the renovation as reflected in a Neighbors Consent dated June
12, 1998; before the construction began, he undertook measures to prevent debris from falling
into respondents property such as the installation of GI sheet strainers, the construction of
scaffoldings on respondents property, the instructions to his workers to clean the area before
leaving at 5:00 p.m; and that the workers conducted daily clean-up of respondents property with
his consent, until animosity developed between the parties.

Malice or bad faith implies a conscious and intentional design to do a wrongful act
for a dishonest purpose or moral obliquity; it is different from the negative idea of negligence in
that malice or bad faith contemplates a state of mind affirmatively operating with furtive design
or ill will. While the Court harbors no doubt that the incidents which gave rise to this dispute
have brought anxiety and anguish to respondent, it is unconvinced that the damage inflicted
upon respondents property was malicious or willful, an element crucial to merit an award of
moral damages under Article 2220 of the Civil Code.