JULIANA SOLANO ET AL., PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLANTS, VS. VICENTA SALVILLA ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES.

Appeal brought up by bill of exceptions filed by counsel for the plaintiffs
from the judgment of April 10, 1913, whereby the Honorable P. M. Moir, judge,
dismissed the complaint, with the costs against the plaintiffs.

On September 1, 1906, Macario Samson filed in the Court of First Instance of
Albay a suit for recovery of possession of a tract of land located in Mabaryu,
of the municipality of Polangui, Albay, from the married couple, Vicenta
Salvilla and Pascual Sierra, who held it by usurpation. After due trial, the
court absolved the defendants, declaring that the plaintiff is not the owner of
the land claimed in the complaint, wherein it was also prayed that said
defendants be sentenced to pay the plaintiff P1,000 as damages.

A bill of exceptions was brought into this court by virtue of an appeal
raised by the plaintiff Samson from the judgment of the court below, and such
appeal having been found to be proper, the court, under date of January 16,
1909, reversed the judgment appealed from and declared that ownership and
possession of the land claimed pertained to the plaintiff. Defendants were
sentenced to deliver and restore possession of the same to the plaintiff, but
they were absolved from the claim for damages, as neither the existence nor the
amount thereof had been proven (Samson vs. Salvilla and Sierra, 12
Phil. Rep., 497).

At this point, as in the meanwhile the said Macario Samson had died, counsel
for his widow Juliana Solano and their children and only heirs, Domingo Samson
and Felisa Samson, filed suit on October 24, 1912, to recover rents from the
said Vicenta Salvilla and Pascual Sierra. He alleged that, by virtue of the
decision rendered by the Supreme Court, the sheriff of the Province of Albay
had, on March 10,1909, carried out its mandates by placing the predecessor in
interest of the plaintiffs in possession of the land in litigation, which the
defendants had held by usurpation from June, 1906, to March 10, 1909. They had
tilled it and enjoyed the products thereof but had failed to deliver to the
owner of the land, the predecessor in interest of the plaintiffs, the third of
the crops that belonged to the latter in the years 1907, 1908, and 1909. This
third was the rent of the said land, of which they were only tenants on shares,
and consisted of 51 trojes and 35 manojos of paddy, -as harvested each year,
equivalent to 103 cavanes and 10 gantas, worth P413.60 a year. The value of the
three crops for the years 1907, 1908, and 1909 amounts to the total sum of
P1,240.80, which was not paid to the deceased Macario Samson in his lifetime,
nor to his heirs the plaintiffs, although the defendants knew that they were
obligated to deliver to the owner of the land a third of its products in those
three years, or the value thereof. They refused to make delivery of the same and
appropriated the third to their own use, wherefore counsel for the plaintiffs
asked for judgment ordering the defendants to deliver to the plaintiffs 310
cavanes and 5 gantas of paddy, or the value thereof, P1,240.80, together with
the interest on this amount, and to pay the costs of the case;

The demurrer filed to the foregoing complaint by counsel for the defendants
was overruled on the ground that the plea of res adjudicata cannot be
set up in a demurrer, but must be alleged as a special defense in answer and
must be afterwards proven as such. In answer to the complaint, counsel for the
defendants then denied each and all of the allegations contained therein and not
expressly admitted in the answer, but he admitted the allegations set forth in
paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of the complaint and the documents forming a
part thereof, marked “A” and “B”. He especially denied the allegations in
paragraphs 7 and 8 thereof.

In special defense he alleged that the subject-matter of this litigation is
res adjudicata in the civil case No. 636 of the Court of Albay and No.
4461 of the general docket of the Supreme Court, as appears in the said Exhibits
A and B, and he therefore prayed the court to absolve the defendants from the
complaint and to sentence the plaintiffs to pay the costs and forever hold their
peace.

As a result the court rendered the decision that has been mentioned,
whereupon counsel for the plaintiffs excepted thereto and appealed by filing the
corresponding bill of exceptions.

The question arising in this suit is whether the claim for rent, or price of
leasing the land usurped, which was ordered restored in the said judgment,
consisting of the third of the products of the said land at the rate of 103
cavanes and 10 gantas of paddy for each of the three years 1907, 1908 and 1909,
or the value thereof, P1,240.80, is involved and included in the complaint filed
in the previous suit and the final judgment rendered therein, and therefore
whether it has already been finally decided.

In the complaint filed in the previous suit the plaintiff Macario Samson
asked that the defendants be sentenced to pay him the sum of Pl ,000 as damages,
and in reversing the judgment appealed from this Court declared that the
plaintiff Samson was not entitled to such damages as he had not proved the
existence or the amount thereof.

In the present suit the widow and heirs of Macario Samson pray that the
defendants be directed to pay them a third of the paddy crop they harvested from
the land usurped during those three years, which in all amounts to 310 cavanes
and 5 gantas, the value whereof is P1,240.80, alleging that the defendants
failed to deliver said third of the products as rent or price of the lease
stipulated, after presentation in September of 1906 of the complaint in said
previous suit, up to March, 1909, when possession of the land in question was
restored to the plaintiff. This claim for rent for these three years cannot be
regarded as included in the previous suit for recovery, wherein among other
things payment was demanded from the defendants of the sum of P1,000 as damages,
for these damages referred to injury done before the filing of the complaint, in
which no claim was set up with reference to later damages.

Counsel for the defendants alleges that the plaintiff, in fixing the sum of
P1,000 as the amount of damages caused him, did not specify that they were
incurred only up to the date of the complaint and he asked for payment thereof
without any distinction and without reservation of his right to claim damages
subsequent to the filing of the complaint, since indemnity for damages, although
it might have two sources, ought to be the subject matter of a single action,
which cannot be divided merely on account of time. The right of the owner of the
tract to be indemnified arose and could be enforced from the moment when the
occupation of the property became illegal on the part of the defendants until
the time when the owner should be restored to possession, the action being
single for the reason that the cause thereof, the illegal occupation of the
property, is single.

In order that a final and executory judgment justify the plea of res
adjudicata in another suit subsequently instituted, and that such plea be
admissible, it is indispensable that there exist in both actions identity of
persons, things and rights of action requisites that must concur in common
between the first suit already carried to judgment and the one subsequently
instituted, by showing that in this second suit the complaint is based upon the
same thing that was the subject matter of the previous litigation, that the same
ground was alleged and that it was between the same parties. (Bowler
vs. Estate of Alvarez, 23 Phil. Rep., 561.)

Every question determined by final judgment in a trial before the courts is
considered res adjudicata. (Civil Code, art. 1252; Code of Civil
Procedure, sees. 306, 307.)

Identity of the parties litigant does really exist between the previous suit
finally determined by the decision, Exhibit B, and the present one, for the
defendants in this suit are the same persons who were sentenced in the preceding
one to restore possession of the land they held by usurpation, and as Macario
Samson, the plaintiff in that suit, had died, the claimants in the present
action are his widow and children, his legal successors in interest to his
rights to the land in question and to the damages the usurpers of the tract
caused him.

Likewise identical is the right of action arising from the right to claim
indemnity for damages caused by said usurpation of the land belonging to the
plaintiff in the first suit, Macario Samson, to whose rights his heirs, now the
plaintiffs, have succeeded through his death, since the same ground for seeking
indemnity for said damages has been alleged in both actions.

But a like identity does not exist in the subject matter of the two suits,
for in the previous one claim was made upon the defendants for payment of the
sum of P1,000 as damages caused to the plaintiff from the date of the usurpation
until that of the complaint, September 1, 1906, by the illegal occupation of the
land which is the subject matter of the action for recovery of possession; and
in the present suit it is prayed that the same defendants be sentenced to
deliver the third of the crops harvested by them from the land they usurped
during the years 1907, 1908, and 1909, as rent for the tract, which third part
of the crops amounts to 103 cavanes and 10 gantas of paddy a year, worth
annually P413.60 and for the three years P1,240.80. The defendants kept that
third of the products of the land detained during the three years subsequent to
the action for recovery until the land recovered was, in compliance with the
judgment of execution, restored to its owner, the predecessor in interest of the
herein plaintiff.

Accordingly, with respect to damages, the things that were the subject matter
of the complaint in the first action and those of the claim herein are not the
same nor are they identical. In the former action indemnity was sought for
damages caused to the plaintiff from the commencement of the usurpation until
the date of the complaint, and in the present one payment is demanded of the
amount of the rent of the land detained, consisting of the third of the crops
grown during the three years following the complaint, until the land was
returned to its owner or the value of each of the said crops of paddy was
paid.

On the supposition therefore, that the subject matter in each case is
different, the first being with reference to damages, it is evident that there
is a lack of one of the requisites indispensable to make the result of the first
suit, as shown by the final judgment, Exhibit B, res adjudicata, in the present
one, and consequently the absolution of the defendants from the complaint for
damages, calculated by the plaintiffs at P1,000, is not res adjudicata
in the present case. Their prayer that the defendants be sentenced to deliver to
the plaintiffs 310 cavanes and 5 gantas of paddy, or the value thereof,
P1,240.80, was not made or decided in the previous suit, so it cannot be
understood to have been duly included in the judgment therein rendered, Exhibit
B.

This being the case, and as it has been shown in this decision that the
plaintiffs, successors in interest of Macario Samson, are entitled to claim the
said quantity of paddy, a third part of the crops of three years or the value
thereof, from the defendants, whose plea that the claim was finally decided in
the previous action is inadmissible and as the parties have not introduced their
respective proofs to show whether or not such crops are owed as rent, trial of
the case should be proceeded with in first instance for that purpose.

Therefore, the judgment appealed from is set aside, and the case will be
returned to the court from which it comes, with a certified copy of this
decision, so that the Court of First Instance may, in accordance with law,
direct the taking of such evidence as the parties may present in these
proceedings. So ordered.

Arellano, C. J., Johnson, Carson, Moreland, Trent, and Araullo,
JJ., concur.