ONG KIM PAN (ALIAS PABLO ONG) AND ONG WA, PETITIONERS AND APPELLANTS, VS. FRANCISCO GERONIMO, JUDGE OF MUNICIPAL COURT OF MANILA, AND BENITO GONZALES, RESPONDENTS AND APPELLEES.

This is an appeal from a decision of the Court of First
Instance of Manila dismissing an action for prohibition directed against a
municipal judge.

It appears that appellants are, and for some time have been,
tenants of certain accesorias comprised in a building located at Muelle
de Binondo, Manila, and belonging to the appellee, Benito Gonzales. Early in
1947 the tenants were required to pay higher rent, but as they refused to do so,
the landlord chose to terminate the lease with notice for them to vacate the
premises. Thus faced with imminent ouster, but before they could be taken to
court, the tenants stole a march on their landlord by interposing, each of them,
an action in the Court of First Instance to compel him to accept a lesser amount
consigned in court as tendered rent, followed shortly thereafter by a joint
action for declaratory relief to have the leased premises declared residential
in nature for the purposes of the rent thereof. All these actions were dismissed
by the trial court and are now on appeal.

After the tenants had filed their actions, the landlord, on his
part, instituted proceedings in the municipal court to eject them from the
leased premises on the ground that their lease, which was from month to month,
had already terminated. Trial of these cases for ejection was, at first,
suspended pending the outcome of the actions for consignation and declaratory
relief. But, following the dismissal of these actions the suspension was lifted,
and trial was about to be resumed when herein appellants sought to restrain it
through an action for prohibition in the Court of First Instance. It is the
dismissal of this action by that court that is now before us for review.

Appellants’ claim to stay of trial in the actions for ejection
is predicated on the existence of other pending cases between the same parties
and relating to the same subject-matter. But we note that the issue is not the
same in all the actions. Whereas the ejection cases pose the issue of the
alleged termination of the lease, the question for ajudication in the
consignation and declaratory relief cases refers merely to the amount of lawful
rent. It is obvious that the decision in the cases last mentioned will not
necessarily dispose of the issue in the others and conclude the controversy
between the parties. It is, of course, within the sound discretion of a court to
hold one lawsuit in abeyance to abide the outcome of another where the parties
and the issues are the same. But it is equally within the court’s discretion to
refuse a stay “where it appears that whatever may be the result of the first
action, a trial of the second will be necessary.” (53 Am. Jur., 36.) As was said
in a case, “it is only where the decision in one action will determine all the
questions in the other action, and the judgment on one trial will dispose of the
controversy in both actions, that a case for a stay is presented.” (Rosenberg
vs. Slotchin [1917], 181 App. Div., 137, 168 N. Y. S., 101; 81 Law. ed., 168.)
Under this salutary rule of practice, appellants’ claim to a stay cannot
successfully be urged.

It should also be borne in mind that the practice of allowing a
stay in one action pending the outcome of another is not of universal
application. In every case the court will consider whether justice will be done
by granting the stay, always mindful of the possibility that it may work damage
to someone else. (53 Am. Jur., 36.) In the present case, the suspension of
proceedings in the ejection cases would work injustice to the landlord with the
paralization of his summary remedy for the ouster of tenants who insist on
occupying his property against his will beyond the period of their lease.

As we see it, the whole controversy between landlord and tenant
in the present case may be resolved in the actions for desahucio so
that if any stay should be granted at all it should be in the consignation and
declaratory relief cases. A contrary ruling would allow a circumvention of the
rules by frustrating the purpose of desahucio as a summary remedy. Such
a result should be avoided.

We are, therefore, of the opinion that the respondent judge
made a good use of his discretion in denying the suspension of trial of the
desahucio cases, so that the petition for prohibition was properly
denied by the Court of First Instance.

The decision appealed from is, therefore, affirmed with costs
against the appellants.

Ozaeta, Paras, Pablo, Bengzon, Padilla, Tuason,
Montemayor, and Torres, JJ., concur.

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CONCURRING

MORAN, C.J.:

I concur in the result upon the rule that the pendency of
another action may be pleaded “only when the judgment to be rendered in the
action first instituted will be such that, regardless of what party is
successful, it will amount to res adjudicata against the second
action.” For instance, a pending action to annul a mortgage is not a bar to an
action for foreclosure of the same mortgage, for the reason that, although the
parties are or may be the same, if the decision in the first action upholds the
validity of the mortgage, then it is no obstacle to the prosecution of the
action for foreclosure. (Manuel vs. Wiggett, 14 Phil., 9; Hongkong &
Shanghai Banking Corp. vs. Aldecoa & Co., 30 Phil., 255; see also
Viuda de Hernaez vs. Jison, 40 Off. Gaz., 3646.)^[1] In other words “it is not sufficient that
the result of the first action may be determinative of the second
in a certain contingency; the situation must be such that the result of
the first will be determinative of the second in any event.”
(Italics ours.) For instance, an action brought by the holder of an insurance
policy to reform the contract, and in the alternative, if the granting of this
relief be found impracticable, to rescind the same, constitutes no obstacle to
the maintenance of an action by the general agent of the insurance company to
recover on the note given for the first premium. (J. Northcott & Co. vs.
Villa-Abrille, 41 Phil., 462.)

It is obvious that in the instant appeal the consignation and
declaratory relief cases which have reference merely to the amount of lawful
rent do not bar the ejection cases, because if it is adjudged in the former
cases that the rent agreed upon by the parties is reasonable then the ejection
cases may go on.

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[1] 72 Phil., 203.