LIM SE AND BENITO LIM, PETITIONERS, VS. HON. MANUEL A. ARGEL, PRESIDING JUDGE OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF RIZAL, CALOOCAN CITY BRANCH XXXV, JUANA SAN PEDRO-OCAMPO, FRANCIS…

Assailed in these special civil actions of certiorari,
prohibition and mandamus, on the grounds of improper venue and litis pendentia, is
the summary judgment of the Court of First Instance of Rizal,
Caloocan City Branch XXXV, ejecting Lim
Se and Benito Lim from Door No. 72 of the Venancia Building
located at 72 Session Road, corner Calderon Street, Baguio
City.

The antecedents of this case are set forth in the resolution of
April 7, 1976 in the contempt incident, In re Adaza,
70 SCRA 378, wherein respondents’ counsel was found guilty of contempt in facie
curiae and was severely censured for having used vicious, abusive and
disrespectful language in his motion for the lifting of the writ of preliminary
mandatory injunction.  Hence, only a
summary statement of the salient facts will be made herein.

On May 13, 1975,
Genaro Bulotano filed a
complaint in the Court of First Instance at Caloocan City
against Juana San Pedro Ocampo and Francisco San
Pedro, the children of Venancia Chiombon,
the owner of the Venancia
Building, who allegedly sold it to
Juana who in turn sold it to Bulotano.

Bulotano prayed that defendants be
ordered to deliver to him the possession of Door No. 72, including its
mezzanine and the entire basement of the Venancia Building
(Civil Case No. C-3547).  No reason was adduced in that complaint as to
why an action to recover possession of realty located in Baguio
City was filed in Caloocan
City.

That action of Bulotano should not
occasion any surprise because he had previously filed in the Court of First
Instance of Cavite a similar case, Civil Case No. N-1647, against Juana San
Pedro Ocampo, Lim Se, Remedios
Sarmiento, Jose T. Zabala
and Olivia R. Arevalo, as administratrix
of the Intestate Estate of Florencio Reyes, Sr.

In that Cavite
case, Bulotano prayed that Lim Se, Sarmiento and Zabala be ordered
to deliver to him the possession of the same Venancia Building,
a part of which is involved in the Caloocan
case, Civil Case No. C-3547.  This fact shows that Bulotano’s
counsel has a wanton disregard for the venue of real actions.

In the Caloocan case, defendants Juana
S. Ocampo and Francisco San Pedro filed against Lim
Se and Benito Lim, father and son, an unverified third-party complaint
(in reality an ejectment action) praying that they be
ordered to vacate Door No. 72, the ground floor, mezzanine and basement of the
same Venancia Building and to pay the sum of P71,200 as back rentals.

That third-party complaint or ejectment
action was based on the termination in 1970 of the 1965 lease contract between
Lim Se and Francisco San Pedro, as attorney-in-fact of his mother, Venancia Chiombon.  It is noteworthy that in that contract it was
stipulated that “in case of suit arising out of this contract, venue
thereof shall be the City of Baguio” (p. 31,
Rollo).

Lim Se and Benito Lim filed a motion to dismiss the third-party
complaint on the grounds of improper venue, lis
pendens and lack of jurisdiction over the res.  The lower court denied it.  Those grounds were pleaded as affirmative
defenses in the answer of Lim Se and Benito Lim.

Thereafter, Juana S. Ocampo and
Francisco San Pedro filed an urgent motion for summary judgment.  The lower court granted the motion.  It ordered Lim Se and Benito Lim to vacate
Door No. 72 of the Venancia
Building, its mezzanine and
basement.

Juana and Francisco then filed a motion for execution pending
appeal.  They alleged that Lim Se’s
cotenants, Zabala and Sarmiento
(occupants of Doors Nos. 74 and 76 of the same Venancia Building),
were ejected in a decision rendered by Judge Serafin
Salvador of the same Caloocan
court.  Lim Se and Benito Lim opposed the
motion.

They filed a motion for the reconsideration of the summary
judgment.  They alleged that they had
leased the disputed premises from the administrator of the estate of Florencio Reyes, Sr. who was the owner of the lot on which
the Venancia
Building stands.  Reyes claimed to have become the owner of the
said building after the expiration of the lease of the lot executed between
Reyes and Venancia Chiombon.

Lim Se and Benito Lim alleged that there was pending in the Court
of First Instance of Baguio Civil Case No. 2817
which was filed by the administrator of the estate of Florencio
Reyes, Sr. against Bulotano, Venancia
Chiombon, Juana S. Ocampo,
Francisco San Pedro, Lim Se and others to settle once and for all the ownership
and possession of the Venancia Building.

Lim Se and Benito Lim further alleged that Venancia
Chiombon and her son, Francisco San Pedro, executed a
simulated and fraudulent sale of the Venancia Building
to Venancia’s daughter, Juana S. Ocampo,
who in turn sold it fictitiously to Bulotano to
prevent the building from becoming the property of Reyes.

Lim Se and Benito Lim called the lower court’s attention to the
fact that in Civil Case No. 1702 of the Caloocan court, Li Hua, the wife of Lim Se, was sought to be ejected from the Venancia Building
but Judge Salvador dismissed the case as to her.

The Caloocan
court denied the motion for reconsideration. 
In a separate order dated January
29, 1976 it declared its summary judgment as final and executory and directed the issuance of a writ of possession
against Lim Se and Benito Lim.  The
deputy sheriff ejected Lim Se and Benito Lim from the disputed premises.

After the filing of the instant petition assailing the summary
judgment and the writ of possession, this Court issued a writ of preliminary
mandatory injunction restoring Lim Se and Benito Lim to the possession of the
disputed premises.

We hold that the trial court acted with grave abuse of discretion
and in excess of jurisdiction in not dismissing the third-party complaint which
was an ejectment suit pure and simple.  The venue of that real action was improperly
laid in Caloocan
City.

Moreover, that action was not maintainable in view of the pendency in the Court of First Instance of Baguio of the aforementioned Civil Case No. 2817 involving
the ownership and possession of the Venancia Building.  All the parties in the Caloocan case are impleaded in the Baguio
case together with the estate of Florencio Reyes, Sr.
which asserts ownership over the disputed premises adverse to that of the
private respondents herein, Bulotano, Juana S. Ocampo and Francisco San Pedro and their
predecessor-in-interest, Venancia Chiombon.

The private respondents contend that since the Caloocan court had jurisdiction
over the main action, it had also jurisdiction over the third-party
complaint.  They cite the ruling that
“where a court has jurisdiction of a claim and the parties in the
principal action, it generally has jurisdiction also of a suit or
proceeding which is a continuation of or incidental and ancillary to the
principal action, even though it might not have jurisdiction of the ancillary proceeding
if it were an independent and original action or proceeding” (1 Moran’s
Comments on the Rules of Court, 1970 Ed., p. 279, citing Republic vs. Central
Surety & Ins. Co., L-27802, October 26, 1968, 25 SCRA 641, 648-9).

That contention is wrong and misleading.  The principal action in
Civil Case No. C-3547 was denominated “specific performance with
damages”.  Actually, it was a real
action to recover “the possession of Door No. 72, its mezzanine floor and
the entire basement of the Venancia
Building” located in Baguio City.  That principal action should have been
brought in Baguio
and not in Caloocan
City.

Defendants Juana S. Ocampo and
Francisco San Pedro did not impugn the venue of the principal action in Civil
Case No. C-3547 because, according to petitioners’ theory, Bulotano, the plaintiff in Civil Case No. C-3547, was merely a dummy of Juana and her brother, Francisco,
and the said principal action was a collusive suit between Bulotano
and the San Pedros.

If the venue of the principal action was improperly laid in Caloocan City, then the venue of the third-party complaint,
which the private respondents characterize as an action ancillary to the main
action but which in reality was a variant of the main action, was likewise
improperly ventilated in Calo­ocan City just as a
prior similar action was improperly brought in Cavite.

Also untenable is the theory of private respondents Juana S. Ocampo and Francisco San Pedro that they could eject Lim Se
and Benito Lim from the Venancia
Building even if respondents’
ownership of that building is being questioned by the estate of Florencio Reyes, Sr. in Civil Case No. 2817 where Lim Se
and private respondents were impleaded as defendants.

Section 1, Rule 4 of the Rules of Court provides that
“forcible entry and detainer actions regarding
real property shall be brought in the municipality or city in which the subject
matter thereof is situated”. 
Section 2 of Rule 4 provides that “actions affecting title to, or
for recovery of possession” of real property shall be commenced and tried
in the province where the property or any part thereof is situated.

Those rules on the venue of real actions are designed to prevent
courts sitting in places other than the place where the real property is
situated from taking cognizance of actions regarding the possession or
ownership of that particular real property. 
Those rules are dictated by convenience. 
They forestall the rendition of conflicting decisions by different
courts on the issue of ownership or possession.

The wisdom and expediency of those rules are illustrated in this
case where Lim Se, as the tenant of an apartment located in Baguio, has been harassed by the
private respondents with an ejectment suit filed in
Cavite
and another ejectment suit filed in Caloocan City.  At the same time, Lim Se is a defendant in a Baguio case where he
is being required to recognize the estate of Florencio
Reyes, Sr. as the owner of the apartment and not the private respondents.

The record contains indications that the private respondents, to
suit their purpose, deliberately sought to avoid the Baguio courts as the legitimate
forum for their real action to recover the possession of premises located in Baguio.  To sanction respondents’ flagrant evasion of
the rule on the venue of a real action is to tolerate a palpable, manipulatory abuse or perversion of the right to litigate.

In this Court’s resolution of February 7, 1979, the parties were directed to state
whether this case has become moot and academic due to supervening events.

In compliance with that resolution, the petitioners manifested
that they are still in possession of the disputed premises, that Civil Case No.
2817 is still pending, that the issue as to the ownership and possession of the
Venancia Building
is as yet unresolved and that this case has not become moot.

On the other hand, the private respondents’ stand is that this
case has become moot and academic because the Baguio court in its order of March 20, 1979 has recognized their
right to collect the rentals from the tenants of the Venancia Building.

That order of the Baguio
court strengthens the view that, in the orderly administration of justice,
private respondents’ remedy is in the Baguio
case and not in the Caloocan
case since the disputed premises are outside the territorial jurisdiction of
the Caloocan
court.

WHEREFORE, the partial summary judgment and the writ of
possession issued by the lower court against the petitioners are set
aside.  The lower court is directed to
dismiss, on the grounds of improper venue and litis
pendentia, the third-party complaint against
the petitioners.  The writ of preliminary
mandatory injunction is made final and permanent.  Costs against the private
respondents.

SO ORDERED.

Barredo, (Chairman), Antonio, Concepcion, Jr., and Guerrero,
JJ., concur.

Santos and Abad Santos, JJ., abroad.