INTESTATE ESTATE OF THE DECEASED LUIS C. DOMINGO, SR., CONSUELO DOMINGO DE LOPEZ, ADMINISTRATRIX-PETITIONER, VS. PEDRO A. AQUINO, DECEASED, SUBSTITUTED BY SALVACION YUSAY AQUINO…

An original action for certiorari
challenging a judgment of the Court of Appeals as null and void for having been
allegedly entered in excess of jurisdiction and/or with grave abuse of
discretion.

On August 7, 1961, the Court of First Instance of Pangasinan rendered judgment approving the money claim of
respondent Pedro A. Aquino against the petitioner
estate by ordering the then special administratrix,
Asuncion Domingo Sta. Maria, “to pay from the available funds of the
estate the sum of P20,000.00 with 12% interest per annum from June 10, 1954 to
Pedro A. Aquino.”

Both parties appealed from the said judgment to the Court of
Appeals, insofar as it was adverse to them, and on January 20, 1967, the
appellate court in an extended nineteen-page decision penned by Justice Ruperto C. Martin, which dealt mainly and exhaustively with
the contentions of appellant estate, found for respondent as appellant, and
affirmed the lower court’s judgment with modifications in favor of respondent,
as follows:  “IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING,
except with the modification of the order as to the payment of the
corresponding interest stipulated in the promissory note (Exhibit C) the claim
of Atty. Pedro A. Aquino is hereby approved and
allowed, and the administratrix ordered to pay, from
the available funds of the estate, the sum of P20,000.00 with compound interest
at the rate of 12% per annum from July 27, 1953, plus P500.00 as attorney’s
fees, to Pedro A. Aquino.”

According to the present petition itself, the estate’s counsel of
record in the appellate court, Atty. Jose A. Unson,
did not receive the notice and copy of the appellate court’s judgment sent to
him by registered mail; but the estate’s attorneys in the intestate proceedings
pending in the lower court, Attys. Primicias, Del
Castillo and Macaraeg, were verbally informed by
respondent’s counsel of the judgment rendered on appeal by the appellate court.^[1]

Pursuant to said information, petitioner caused to be filed on March
9, 1967, with the appellate court an “Appearance with Motions for
Substitution and to be served with a copy of the Judgment”, stating, inter
alia, that the former special administratrix, Asuncion Domingo Sta. Maria had long
resigned as such with the permission of the intestate court, that the other
co-special administrator, Atty. Luis Domingo, Jr. (who had caused the
prosecution of the appeal) was removed from his trust by the intestate court’s
order dated May 21, 1963, for having squandered cash funds of the
estate, and that as a consequence, Mrs. Consuelo Domingo de Lopez was appointed
judicial administratrix and has since been
administering the estate alone; that Mrs. Lopez as judicial administratrix
wished to file a motion for reconsideration of the appellate court’s judgment
and that the clerk of court be directed to serve copy of said judgment on her
counsel instead of on Atty. Unson as the former
special administrator’s counsel “for purposes of starting running of time
to move for re-hearing or reconsideration”; and praying that as present
judicial administratrix, she be substituted in lieu
of the former joint administrators and that her counsel be served with copy of
the appellate court’s decision.

Upon due opposition of respondent on the ground of finality of the
judgment, the appellate court denied the petitioner’s motion for
reconsideration per its resolution of April 27, 1967.

No further move was made by petitioner thereafter until almost
five months later when on September
23, 1967, after respondent had filed in the intestate court a
motion for execution of the judgment, as affirmed in his favor by the appellate
court, it filed the present petition. 
Upon the representations – contrary to the records – that the appellate
court had granted “new or further relief” in favor of respondent by
awarding compound interest on the sum due respondent and that Atty. Unson has ceased to be the estate’s lawyer since May 21,
1963 with the removal of the former administrator, Luis Domingo, Jr. as such,
the Court issued on October 3, 1967, the corresponding summons and required
respondents to answer the petition.

The Court, upon urgent supplemental petition of petitioner,
further issued on November 7, 1967, upon a P1,000.00 bond, a writ of
preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement, through sale of the estate’s
properties, of the appellate court’s judgment.

The Court finds no merit in the petition.

1.  The records at bar amply
show that Atty. Jose A. Unson was the counsel on
record of the petitioner estate in the appellate court and never filed any
withdrawal as such counsel.  As a matter
of fact, even after the removal on May
21, 1963 of Luis Domingo, Jr. as administrator of the estate, Atty.
Unson filed in the appellate court his memorandum
dated August 17, 1963, for
the estate as appellant.  While it may be
true that Atty. Unson ceased as counsel for the
estate and for the former administrator sometime on November 8, 1966,
when the intestate court granted his motion dated November 2, 1966, to
withdraw as counsel by virtue of his appointment to and assumption on February
8, 1966 of the public office of Assistant Administrator of the Sugar Quota
Administration,^[2]
this was true only insofar as the case in the intestate court was
concerned.  He continued on record in the
appellate court as counsel for the estate as appellant therein and did not file
therein any withdrawal as counsel and neither did the petitioner inform said
court of any change of counsel or of party-administrator, as required by Rule
138, section 26 of the Rules of Court. 
More so, no appearance of any new counsel for the estate was ever filed
with the appellate court.

2.  Notice and copy of the
appellate court’s decision of January 20, 1967, were therefore duly served by
registered mail on the estate’s counsel of record at his address of record at
307 Trinity Building, San Luis, Ermita, Manila, in
accordance with Rule 13, section 8 of the Rules of Court.^[3]
And in accordance with said Rule, service by registered mail of the appellate
court’s decision upon the petitioner’s counsel of record was deemed completed
and effected upon the addressee’s failure to claim his mail on the fifth day
after the first notice of the postmaster.^[4]
This has ever since been the prevailing rule in the interests of public policy
and sound, administration of justice, as most recently affirmed in Fojas vs. Navarro,^[5]
citing a long line of applicable precedents.

3.  The present administratrix gives no satisfactory explanation as to her
failure to substitute herself vice Luis Domingo, Jr., since the latter’s
removal on May 21, 1963, when she became the sole administrator (which
she previously shared with Luis from December 21, 1961), or to then engage new
counsel vice Atty. Unson in the appellate court.  Her very motion for substitution filed on March 9, 1967 with the
appellate court after its decision of January
20, 1967 recognized the fact that the appellate court had
already duly handed down its adverse decision and merely expressed her wish to
belatedly file a motion for reconsideration on behalf of the petitioner
estate.  After the appellate court’s
denial of her motion on April 27, 1967, she was apparently resigned to
the futility of filing any such motion, in view of the finality of the
appellate court’s decision – for such motion was never filed.

4.  One vital factor that the
present administratrix, Mrs. Lopez, has obviously
failed to appreciate, wittingly or otherwise, is that the party in the subject
case was the intestate estate of the deceased Luis C. Domingo, Sr. and that
Atty. Unson represented the estate as counsel in the
said case.  The fact that his services
were engaged by Luis Domingo, Jr. in his (Luis’) official capacity as
administrator, did not make him the personal counsel of Luis.  Thus, notwithstanding Luis’ removal as
administrator, Atty. Unson continued to represent the
estate as counsel in the appellate court. 
He continued to be authorized to represent the estate as its counsel,
until the new administrator should terminate his services, which she never did.

5.  The representations made
by the present administrator and her counsel in the petition at bar – filed
almost five months after the appellate court’s denial of her belated motion for
substitution and to be served with copy of its decision – to the effect that
the appellate court had granted respondent “new and further relief”
in its decision by the award of compound interest on the sum due respondent are
deplorable.  They failed to set out
before the Court the full facts, viz, that
respondent had duly prayed for the award of compound interest by the intestate
court in accordance with the very stipulation of the promissory note sued upon;
that respondent had duly moved the intestate court to reconsider its decision
failing to provide for such compound interest; that the intestate court, in
denying respondent’s motion, merely stated “that the issue may just as
well be decided in the appellate court, since both parties had indicated their
intention to appeal; and that respondent in fact filed his appeal from this
adverse portion of the intestate court’s decision, as well as the non-award of
the stipulated attorney’s fees of P500.00. 
The appellate court therefore properly modified the intestate court’s
decision by awarding such compound interest and attorney’s fees as prayed for
in the errors assigned in respondent’s brief as appellant.

6.  It results clearly that
the petition, alleging and praying that the appellate court’s decision of
January 20, 1967, be declared null and void for having been rendered and
entered in excess of or without jurisdiction or that this Court send for the
records from the appellate court “for purposes of review and thereafter
render its own decision reversing the judgment [of the appellate court]”
notwithstanding its long having become final and executory,
is utterly untenable and without legal justification.

7.  Petitioner’s counsel are
reminded of this Court’s admonition in Pajares
vs. Abad Santos,^[6]
and other cases cited therein, to wit, that “the cooperation of litigants
and their attorneys is needed so that needless clogging of the court dockets
with unmeritorious cases may be avoided. 
There must be more faithful adherence to Rule 7, section 5 of the Rules
of Court which provides that ‘the signature of an attorney constitutes a
certificate by him that he has read the pleading and that to the best of his
knowledge, information and belief, there is good ground to support it; and
that it is not interposed or delay‘ and expressly admonishes that ‘for a
willful violation of this rule, an attorney may be subjected to disciplinary
action.'”

WHEREFORE, the petition is ordered dismissed and
petitioner’s counsel shall pay treble costs. 
The writ of preliminary injunction issued on November 7, 1967 is hereby
dissolved and upon promulgation of this decision, respondent may proceed
immediately with the enforcement and execution by the intestate court of the
appellate court’s judgment of January 20, 1967, in his favor.  This decision shall be noted in the personal
record of the counsel for petitioner and of their associate attorney, Teodoro P. Regino, who signed and
verified the petition.

SO ORDERED.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Castro, Fernando, Barredo,
Villamor, and Makasiar, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Par. 14, petition.

^[2]
Annex M, petitioner’s reply.

^[3]
“Section 8.  Completeness of
service.  — Personal service is
complete upon actual delivery.  Service
by ordinary mail is complete upon the expiration of five (5) days after
mailing, unless the court otherwise provides. 
Service by registered mail is complete upon actual receipt by the
addressee; but if he fails to claim his mail from the post office within five
(5) days from the date of first notice of the postmaster, service shall take
effect at the expiration of such time.

^[4]
Attached in the appellate court’s record is the Manila postmaster’s
certification dated March 14, 1967, that Atty. Unson
did not claim Registry Letter No. 156 from the post office and that the same
was returned to the appellate court on March 9, 1967.

^[5]
L-26365, April 30, 1970.

^[6]
30 SCRA 748 (Nov. 29, 1969),
emphasis copied.