Laws Applicable:
FACTS:
- FEB Leasing and Finance Corporation (FEB) leased equipment and motor vehicles to JVL Food Products with a monthly rental of P170,494
- At the same date, Vicente Ong Lim Sing, Jr. (Lim) an executed an Individual Guaranty Agreement with FEB to guarantee the prompt and faithful performance of the terms and conditions of the lease agreement
- JVL defaulted in the payment of the monthly rentals resulting to arrears of P3,414,468.75 and refused to pay despite demands
- FEB filed a complaint for damages and replevin against JVL, Lim and John Doe
- JVL and Lim admitted the existence of the lease agreement but asserted that it is in reality a sale of equipment on installment basis, with FEB acting as the financier
- RTC: Sale on installment and the FEB elected full payment of the obligation so for the unreturned units and machineries the JVL and Lim are jointly and severally liable to pay
- CA: granted FEB appeal that it is a financial lease agreement under Republic Act (R.A.) No. 8556 and ordered JVL and Lim jointly and severally to pay P3,414,468.75
ISSUE: W/N JVL and Lim should jointly and severally be liable for the insured financial lease
HELD: YES. CA affirmed.
- contract of adhesion is as binding as any ordinary contract
- The Lease Contract with corresponding Lease Schedules with Delivery and Acceptance Certificates is, in point of fact, a financial lease within the purview of R.A. No. 8556
- FEB leased the subject equipment and motor vehicles to JVL in consideration of a monthly periodic payment of P170,494.00. The periodic payment by petitioner is sufficient to amortize at least 70% of the purchase price or acquisition cost of the said movables in accordance with the Lease Schedules with Delivery and Acceptance Certificates.
- JVL entered into the lease contract with full knowledge of its terms and conditions.
- Lim, as a lessee, has an insurable interest in the equipment and motor vehicles leased.
- In the financial lease agreement, FEB did not assume responsibility as to the quality, merchantability, or capacity of the equipment. This stipulation provides that, in case of defect of any kind that will be found by the lessee in any of the equipment, recourse should be made to the manufacturer. “The financial lessor, being a financing company, i.e., an extender of credit rather than an ordinary equipment rental company, does not extend a warranty of the fitness of the equipment for any particular use. Thus, the financial lessee was precisely in a position to enforce such warranty directly against the supplier of the equipment and not against the financial lessor. We find nothing contra legem or contrary to public policy in such a contractual arrangement