Short answer. Yes, unless he wrote it down on receipt. A commission agent answers for the goods on the terms and description in the consignment papers, and the only way out is a written statement of the damage and deterioration made when he receives them.
What the law says
The commission agent shall be responsible for the goods received by him in the terms and conditions and as described in the consignment, unless upon receiving them he should make a written statement of the damage and deterioration suffered by the same.
Civil Code, Article 1903 — Commission Agent's Responsibility for Goods. Read the full provision →
The consignment papers set the baseline
A commission agent is someone who sells goods for another in his own name, taking a commission on the sale. What this article does is fix his starting point: he is responsible for the goods as described in the consignment. Sign for forty crates in good order and you are treated as having received forty crates in good order, whatever the pallets actually looked like when the truck arrived. The description is not merely a shipping formality; it becomes the standard you are measured against, and everything you later say about the condition of the goods is an argument against a document you accepted.
The written statement is the whole defence
The escape is narrow and precise. It has to be a written statement, and it has to be made upon receiving the goods — not after the buyer complains, not when the consignor asks for the proceeds, and not in a phone call nobody recorded. That timing is deliberate, because the point is to record the condition while it can still be checked by both sides. Practically, this means inspecting before signing, noting the damage on the delivery receipt itself, photographing the goods and their packing, and sending the notation to the consignor the same day. An agent who signs clean and complains later has almost nothing to work with.
What the responsibility does not mean
It does not make the agent an insurer of everything that can befall merchandise. It fixes the condition in which he is deemed to have received them; it does not convert him into the guarantor of a fortuitous loss he had no part in. Nor does it decide who pays in the end. An agent who is answerable to the consignor may in turn have claims against the carrier or the packer, and a properly noted delivery receipt is exactly the document those claims rest on. Where the goods are perishable or the shipment large, the sensible course is to raise the condition of the cargo before anyone signs anything.
If you are the one consigning goods
The same rule works for you. Describe the goods accurately and in detail in the consignment — quantity, grade, packing, condition — because that description is what the agent is held to. Keep photographs of what left your warehouse. Ask for a copy of the signed receipt on the day of delivery rather than at the end of the month, and treat any notation of damage as a matter to take up immediately, while the carrier's records are fresh. Disputes of this kind are almost always decided by paper generated in the first twenty-four hours, by whichever side bothered to generate it.
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 Rabbit Bus Lines, Inc. vs. Heirs of Eduardo Mangawang, et al, G.R. No. 160355, May 16, 2005 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Pepe Catacutan vs. Heirs of Norman Kadusale, et al, G.R. No. 131280, October 18, 2000 — read the decision on LawPhil →