Short answer. Yes, in principle. Article 2232 provides that in contracts and quasi-contracts the court may award exemplary damages if the defendant acted in a wanton, fraudulent, reckless, oppressive or malevolent manner. The conduct, not the size of the breach, is what the article is looking at.
What the law says
In contracts and quasi-contracts, the court may award exemplary damages if the defendant acted in a wanton, fraudulent, reckless, oppressive, or malevolent manner.
Civil Code, Article 2232 — Exemplary Damages in Contracts. Read the full provision →
Five adjectives, and they describe a manner
The article does not ask whether the breach was serious. It asks how the defendant behaved, and supplies five words for it: wanton, fraudulent, reckless, oppressive, or malevolent. Those describe a manner of acting rather than a degree of loss, which is why a modest breach carried out with deliberate deceit can support exemplary damages while a large and costly one committed honestly cannot. So frame the case around conduct, and be specific about which of those five words your facts answer to, and why they do.
Not the same claim as moral damages
The two are constantly confused, because the same behaviour tends to attract both. Moral damages compensate you, and Article 2220 supplies the route to them on a contract, applying the rule to breaches where the defendant acted fraudulently or in bad faith. Exemplary damages do not compensate at all. Article 2229 describes them as imposed by way of example or correction for the public good, in addition to the moral, temperate, liquidated or compensatory damages. One looks at your injury; the other looks at his conduct.
They cannot stand alone
The article says the court may award them, and two further provisions show how conditional that is. Article 2233 states that exemplary damages cannot be recovered as a matter of right and that the court decides whether they should be adjudicated. Article 2234 requires you first to show entitlement to moral, temperate or compensatory damages, and, where liquidated damages were stipulated, that you would have been entitled to them but for the stipulation. The ordinary heads of loss are the foundation, not an afterthought.
How the manner is proved
From conduct over time rather than from the single act of breaching. The sequence of representations and what was known when each was made, documents that turn out to be inconsistent with what you were told, money moved or goods resold elsewhere, and the way your complaints were handled all speak to whether this was merely defaulting or something worse. Build a dated chronology. Note also that under Article 2216 the amount need not be proved, so the work lies entirely in establishing the character of what he did.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- Philippine Airlines, Inc. Vs. Court of Appeals, et al, G.R. No. 123238, September 22, 2008 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- M.Y. Intercontinental Trading Corporation, Tedwin T. Uy, and Allianz Marketing and Publishing Corporation vs. St. Mary'S Publishing Corporation, G.R. No. 249715, April 12, 2023 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Luisito C. Reyes vs. Jebsens Maritime, Inc. and Alfa Ship & Crew Management GMBH ndez, represented by Lourdes H. Tionson, G.R. No. 230502, February 15, 2022 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- United Coconut Planters Bank, Inc. vs. E. Ganzon, Inc, G.R. No. 244247, November 10, 2021 — read the decision on LawPhil →
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 2229 — Exemplary Damages Defined
- Civil Code, Article 2234 — Entitlement to Compensatory Damages First