Short answer. No, not if the carrier's own negligence was still the main cause of the loss. Article 1741 of the Civil Code says that when a shipper merely contributed to a loss whose proximate cause was the carrier's negligence, the carrier remains liable for damages — the damages are simply equitably reduced to reflect the shipper's share of fault.
What the law says
If the shipper or owner merely contributed to the loss, destruction or deterioration of the goods, the proximate cause thereof being the negligence of the common carrier, the latter shall be liable in damages, which however, shall be equitably reduced.
Civil Code, Article 1741 — Shipper's Contributory Negligence. Read the full provision →
Contributing to a loss is not causing it
Article 1741 draws a line between the shipper merely contributing to a loss and the shipper's conduct being its proximate cause. Bad packing that made goods more vulnerable is a contribution. It is a different thing entirely from packing so defective that it, rather than anything the carrier did, is what actually caused the loss. The article only addresses the first situation — where the carrier's own negligence remains the real, immediate cause and the shipper's fault is a secondary factor layered on top of it.
What the carrier still owes
Where that is the case, the statute is direct: the carrier shall be liable in damages. Poor packing on your part does not erase the carrier's own negligence or excuse it from responsibility for a loss it caused. A carrier cannot point to your packing and treat that alone as a full defense when its own failure to exercise the diligence the law expects of it is still what actually destroyed or lost the goods.
Why the damages get reduced, not eliminated
The article's remedy is proportional rather than all-or-nothing: damages are to be equitably reduced. That reflects that your own conduct played some role in what happened, so it would be unfair to make the carrier pay as though it bore the entire loss alone. But "reduced" is not "cancelled" — the statute does not say the carrier's liability disappears once any shipper fault is shown, only that the amount recoverable should be scaled down to account for it.
What actually decides the outcome
Whether Article 1741 applies to your situation turns on which side's conduct was the proximate cause of the loss, and that is a factual question about what actually happened to the shipment. Keep the packing details, any instructions the carrier gave about how goods should be prepared, and everything showing how the loss occurred, because that record is what will determine whether you are looking at a full claim, a reduced one, or none at all.
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.
- In the Matter of Urgent Petition for the Release of Prisoners on Humanitarian Grounds, G.R. No. 252117, July 28, 2020 — read the decision on LawPhil →