Forbes vs.

Chuoco Tiaco
G.R. No. L-6157 July 30, 1910

Facts: plaintiffs in this case are W. Cameron Forbes is the Governor-General of the
Philippines, Chief of Police J. E. Harding and Chief of the Secret Service of the City of
Manila C. R. Trowbridge. The defendants are A. S. Crossfield ,one of the judges of the
Court of First Instance of the City of Manila and Chuoco Tiaco ,a foreigner of Chinese
nationality and a resident of the Philippines for the last 35 years having a family in
the country and some properties. Chuoco Tiaco filed a case for damages alleging
that defendants forcibly deported the plaintiff to China and forcibly prevented his
return for some months in violation of the right of the said plaintiff herein to be and
to remain in the Philippine Islands as established by law.

Crossfield issued an inhibition against Forbes et al from spelling or deporting or

threatening to expel or deport Chuoco Tiaco. Forbes, Harding, and Trowbridge sued
for writs of prohibition against the judge and the respective plaintiffs, alleging that
the expulsion was carried out in the public interest and at the request of the proper
representative of the Chinese government in the Philippines, and was immediately
reported to the Secretary of War. The complaints were demurred to, but the
Supreme Court overruled the demurrers, granted the prohibition, and ordered the
actions dismissed. The judge, having declined to join in the applications for writs of
error, was made a respondent, and the cases are here on the ground that the
plaintiffs have been deprived of liberty without due process of law.

Issue: Whether the Governor General, as Chief Executive, can be sued in a civil
action?

Held: The principle of nonliability, as herein enunciated, does not mean that the
judiciary has no authority to touch the acts of the Governor-General; that he may,
under cover of his office, do what he will, unimpeded and restrained. Such a
construction would mean that tyranny, under the guise of the execution of the law,
could walk defiantly abroad, destroying rights of person and of property, wholly free
from interference of courts or legislatures.

This does not mean, either, that a person injured by the executive authority by an
act unjustifiable under the law has no remedy, but must submit in silence. On the
contrary, it means, simply, that the governor-general, like the judges of the courts
and the members of the legislature, may not be personally mulcted in civil damages
for the consequences of an executed in the performance of his official duties.

The judiciary has full power to, and will, when the matter is properly presented to it
and the occasion justly warrants it, declare an act of the Governor-General illegal
and void and place as nearly as possible in status quo any person who has been
deprived of his liberty or his property by such act. This remedy is assured every
person, however humble or of whatever country, when his personal or property
rights have been invaded, even by the highest authority of the state. The thing
which the judiciary cannot do is to mulct the Governor-General personally in
damages which result from the performance of his official duty, any more than it
can a member of the Philippine Commission or the Philippine Assembly. Public policy
forbids it.