OFRECINO T. SANTOS, PETITIONER VS. THE COURT OF APPEALS, ET AL., RESPONDENTS.

On May 20, 1950, Ofrecino T. Santos (hereinafter to be referred to
as petitioner) filed in the Court of First Instance of Cotabato an
action for the recovery of the sum of Pl,628 against Teodulo M. Cruz
and Valentin C. Garcia (Civil Case No. 241). The petitioner secured a
writ of preliminary attachment which was levied upon a tractor which,
though believed by the petitioner to belong to the defendants in Civil
Case No. 241, in fact was owned by the Philippine Reconstruction
Corporation Inc. (hereinafter to be referred to as respondent), which
in due time filed a third party claim. The petitioner filed an amended
complaint including the respondent as a defendant, but upon motion
filed by Teodulo M. Cruz and Valentin C. Garcia, Civil Case No. 241 was
dismissed by the Court of First Instance of Cotabato for lack of
jurisdiction, the amount involved being less than P2,000. The
petitioner filed a similar action in the Justice of the Peace Court of
Buayan, Cotabato, against the respondent as sole defendant, wherein the
petitioner was awarded the sum of P1,638.10, with interest and costs,
but this decision is still the subject matter of a pending certiorari
proceeding in the Court of First Instance of Cotabato instituted by the
respondent.

On May 9, 1951, the respondent filed in the Court of First Instance
of Manila Civil Case No. 13778 against the petitioner, for damages
resulting from the levy of its tractor under the writ of attachment
issued in Civil Case No. 241. Paragraphs III and VII of the
respondent’s complaint in Civil Case No. 13778 read as follows:

“III

“That on or about the month of September, 1950 and
in connection with the execution of a preliminary writ of attachment
secured by the herein defendant Ofrecino T. Santos in Civil Case No.
241 of the Court of First Instance of Cotabato entitled Ofrecino T.
Santos, plaintiff vs. Teodulo M. Cruz and Valentin C. Garcia,
defendants, the above-named defendants conspiring, confabulating and
conniving with one another procured and caused to be attached a certain
Caterpillar D-8 tractor of herein plaintiff who was not a party in said
case and that defendants herein fully knowing that the said tractor
does not belong to any of the defendants Teodulo M. Cruz and Valentin
C. Garcia in said Civil Case No. 241 of the Court of First Instance of
Cotabato;

“VII

“That due to the said wrongful and malicious
attachment levied by the herein defendants on plaintiffs’ tractor and
their subsequent refusal to release the same from attachment as above
stated plaintiff was consequently forced to violate its contractual
undertaking with a certain Mr. Tomas Gonzales as stated in the sworn
third party claim so that it was compelled to pay a liquidated damages
in the sum of Three Thousand Pesos (P3,000) aside from having lost a
sure income from rent on said tractor in the sum of One Thousand Five
Hundred Pesos (Pl,500);”

The other necessary details are recited as follows in the decision of the Court of Appeals^[1]
promulgated on October 30, 1952 in CA-G.R. No. 9925-R, Ofrecino T.
Santos, petitioner, vs. Philippine Reconstruction Corporation, Inc.,
and the Honorable Demetrio B. Encarnacion, Judge, Branch I, Court of
First Instance of Manila, respondents :

“On June 10, 1951, petitioner (defendant in Civil Case No. 13778 of
Manila) was duly summoned to answer the complaint filed in said Civil
Case. A motion to dismiss, filed by defendant’s counsel, was received
on June 23, 1951, in the Court of First Instance of Manila. On the
other hand, counsel for plaintiff Philippine Reconstruction Corporation
(now respondent) filed on July 12, 1951, an ex-parte motion,
praying that defendant Ofrecino T. Santos was declared in default on
the ground that his motion to dismiss does not contain a notice for
hearing as provided in Kule 26 of the Rules of Court, and therefore not
a valid one. Copy of said order was received by defendant’s counsel on
August 2, 1951. On August 26th, plaintiffs counsel moved that the
aforesaid Civil Case No. 13778 be set for hearing. In his turn, counsel
for defendant Ofrecino T. Santos filed on September 1st a petition
praying that the order of default dated July 23rd be set aside; that
his motion to dismiss be given due course, either by sustaining or
denying the same; and that if denied, defendant be allowed to file his
answer.

“By virtue of an order dated February 12, 1952, the
case was set for hearing on February 28th, and on the following day
decision was rendered in favor of the plaintiff and against the
defendants, ordering the later to pay the sum of P4,500 with legal rate
of interest from the date of the filing of the complaint and to further
pay the sum of P1 ,000.00 as attorney’s fees and costs of the suit. A
copy of this decision was on March 7, 1952, sent by registered mail to
Ofrecino T. Santos’ counsel who received the same in March 17th.
Consequently, on April 5, 1952, defendant Ofrecino T. Santos, thru his
counsel, moved for the reconsideration of the aforesaid decision, to
which motion counsel for the plaintiff filed his opposition on April
20, 1952. On June 11, 1952,, said motion for reconsideration was denied.

“Ofrecino
T. Santos now comes before us as petitioner, alleging that the
respondent court committed a grave abuse of discretion when, as
defendant in the aforesaid Civil Case No. 13778, he was arbitrarily
declared in default; and when it declared his motion to dismiss not a
valid one. Petitioner further claims that the respondent court again
committed a grave abuse of discretion when, instead of acting upon his
petition (Annex ‘A’) for relief from the order of default, it set the
case for hearing and proceeded to hear plaintiff’s evidence and
rendered a decision. It is also alleged by petitioner that the Court of
First Instance of Manila acted without jurisdiction, the cause of
action in Civil Case No. 13778 having arisen from a supposed wrongful
attachment ordered by the Court of First Instance of Cotabato in Civil
Case No. 241, and for that reason, that the latter court has exclusive
jurisdiction to determine whether its legal processes are wrongful or
not; and even granting that the Court of First Instance of Manila had
proper jurisdiction, the particular cause of action in said Civil Case
No. 13778 is banned by the decision of the Justice of the Peace Court
of Buayan, Cotabato.”

From the decision of the Court of Appeals dismissing his petition
for certiorari, the petitioner has interposed the present appeal by way
of certiorari, assigning the following alleged errors:

“1. The Court of Appeals erred in finding the motion
to dismiss dated June 19, 1951 in Civil Case No. 13778 of Manila as no
motion at all.

“2. The Court of Appeals erred in sustaining
the ruling of the Court of First Instance of Manila that Ofrecino T.
Santos was in default in Civil Case No. 13778.

“3. The Court
of Appeals erred in finding that the petition for relief from order
dated August 28, 1951 was ‘impliedly overruled when the respondent
court set Civil Case No. 13778 for hearing, received plaintiff’s
evidence and finally rendered decision therein.’

“4. The Court of Appeals erred in holding Ofrecino T. Santos under estoppel to raise the ‘issue of jurisdiction.’

“5.
The Court of Appeals erred in sustaining a decision that was null and
void, emanating as it did from a court which had no jurisdiction to try
Civil Case No. 13778.”

Without deciding whether the petitioner’s motion to dismiss filed in
Civil Case No. 13778 was a mere scrap of paper for lack of notice of
hearing, it is clear that he could and should have appealed from the
decision on the merits rendered therein by the Court of First Instance
of Manila, of which he was duly notified, raising in said appeal the
propriety of the ruling of default against him, the failure of the
trial court to expressly dispose of his petition for relief, and the
principal question of jurisdiction. It is elementary that certiorari
will hot lie where the remedy of appeal is available.

On the issue of jurisdiction, it is to be recalled that, when
respondent’s tractor was levied upon, it was not a party in Civil Case
No. 241, and although an amended complaint was filed, no new writ of
attachment was issued so as to cover respondent’s properties. It is
also significant that Civil Case No. 241 was dismissed by the Court of
First Instance of Cotabato for lack of jurisdiction. We have no
hesitancy in declaring that the Court of First Instance of Manila
correctly took cognizance of Civil Case No. 13778, because the
respondent sought damages, not on the allegation that the writ of
attachment was illegally or wrongfully issued by the Court of First
Instance of Cotabato in Civil Case No. 241, but on theory that said
writ was caused by the petitioner to be levied upon the tractor of the
respondent which was not a party defendant. The filing of the amended
complaint did not cure the defect, since the seizure continued to be in
virtue of the original writ, none having been issued under the amended
complaint.

The petitioner is invoking the following pronouncement in our
decision in Cruz vs. Manila Surety & Fidelity Co., Inc., et al., 49
Off. Gaz. (3) 964; 92 Phil. 699:

“The procedure for recovery of damages on account of
the issuance of a writ of attachment, injunction, receivership, and
replevin proceedings, as interpreted in the cases adverted to, requires
that the claim for damages should be presented in the same action which
gave rise to the special proceeding in order that it may be included in
the final judgment of the case, and it cannot be the subject of a
separate action. The philosophy of the ruling seems to be that the
court that had acted on the special proceeding which occasioned the
damages has the exclusive jurisdiction to assess them because of its
control of the case. This ruling is sound and tends to avoid
multiplicity of action.”

The citation is not controlling, for the reason that, apart from the
circumstance that, as already stated, the respondent has never claimed
that the writ of attachment was wrongfully issued in Civil Case No.
241, it appears that the latter case was dismissed for lack of
jurisdiction, and no claim for damages could therefore properly have
been presented in said case, because the Court of First Instance of
Cotabato, thus lacking jurisdiction, was in fact prevented from
rendering any final judgment therein which could include such damages.
Avoidance of multiplicity of suite presupposes the competence of the
court in the first or earlier case.

Wherefore, the appealed decision is affirmed, and it is so ordered with costs against the petitioner.

Pablo, Bengzon, Padilla, Montemayor, Reyes, A., Jugo, Bautista Angelo, Labrador and Concepcion, JJ., concur.

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^[1] After the Court of First Instance of Manila rendered a
decision in Civil Case No. 13778, sentencing the petitioner to pay to
the defendant the sum of P4,500, with legal interest, attorney’s fees
in the sum of P1,000, and costs, the petitioner, instead of appealing
instituted in the Court of Appeals a special civil action for
certiorari.