Facts: Gashem Shookat Baksh is an Iranian enrolled in a medical school while Marilou Gonzales works in the cafeteria of said school. According to Marilou, Gashem courted and proposed to marry her. Because of his persuasive promise to marry her, she allowed herself to be deflowered by him. No marriage came hence an action for breach of promise to marry.
Issue: Is a breach of promise to marry an actionable wrong?
Is Article 21 of the Civil Code applicable in the case?
Held: [I]The existing rule is that breach of promise to marry per se is not an actionable wrong. Congress deliberately eliminated from the draft of the New Civil Code the provisions that would have made it so.
This notwithstanding, the said Code contains a provision, Article 21, which is designed to expand the concept of torts or quasi-delicts in this jurisdiction by granting adequate legal remedy for the untold number of moral wrongs which is impossible for human foresight to specifically enumerate and punish in the statute books.
Where a man's promise to marry is in fact the proximate cause of the acceptance of his love by a woman and his representation to fulfill that promise thereafter becomes the proximate cause of the giving of herself unto him in a sexual congress, proof that he had, in reality, no intention of marrying her and that the promise was only a subtle scheme or deceptive device to entice or inveigle her to accept his and to obtain her consent to the sexual act, could justify the award of damages pursuant to Article 21 not because of such promise to marry but because of the fraud and deceit behind it and the willful injury to her honor and reputation which followed thereafter. It is essential however, that such injury should have been committed in a manner contrary to morals, good customs or public policy.
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Pinoyexchange posted by pugsley
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