Short answer. No. Article 1758 allows a carrier to limit liability for ordinary negligence toward a gratuitous passenger, but never for wilful acts or gross negligence. Being carried for free does not shrink the carrier's exposure when the injury results from that level of fault.
What the law says
When a passenger is carried gratuitously, a stipulation limiting the common carrier's liability for negligence is valid, but not for wilful acts or gross negligence.
Civil Code, Article 1758 — Gratuitous Passengers. Read the full provision →
What the law says
The reduction of fare does not justify any limitation of the common carrier's liability.
Civil Code, Article 1758 — Gratuitous Passengers. Read the full provision →
A limitation clause has a real but narrow scope
Article 1758 does allow carriers some room to limit liability toward passengers they carry for free, but that room is narrower than it might first appear. When a passenger is carried gratuitously, a stipulation limiting the common carrier's liability for negligence is valid, but not for wilful acts or gross negligence. The word but in that sentence is doing the real work: a limitation clause can validly cover ordinary negligence, yet the same clause stops short the moment the carrier's conduct rises to wilful misconduct or gross negligence.
Gross negligence is carved out entirely
If your injury resulted from gross negligence — a serious and reckless failure to exercise even the slight care a reasonable person would have used — no stipulation the carrier relies on can validly shield it from liability for that. The article treats gross negligence the same way it treats wilful acts: both fall outside what a gratuitous-passenger limitation clause can ever cover, regardless of how broadly the clause itself was drafted.
The fare reduction argument does not work either
Some carriers try to justify broader limitations by pointing to how little, or how nothing, the passenger paid. Article 1758 forecloses that argument directly: the reduction of fare does not justify any limitation of the common carrier's liability. A free or discounted ride is not, by itself, a reason to read a limitation clause more generously in the carrier's favor — the price paid and the scope of permissible limitation are treated as separate questions.
What this means for your situation
Being carried without charge does not leave you without recourse if the carrier's gross negligence caused your injury. Whatever limitation clause the carrier points to, it cannot validly extend to gross negligence or wilful acts under this article, so its enforceability depends on whether what happened to you actually amounts to ordinary negligence or something more serious. That distinction — ordinary negligence versus gross negligence — is the central factual question a claim like yours would need to establish.