CARCO MOTOR SALES, INC., PETITIONER, VS. HON. COURT OF APPEALS AND COMMERCIAL CREDIT CORPORATION, RESPONDENTS.

The Court sets aside respondent appellate court’s dismissal of
petitioner’s appeal for failure to file appellant’s brief within the original reglementary period, notwithstanding that such failure had
been due to the fault and negligence of petitioner’s counsel’s office secretary
and petitioner had thereafter promptly filed its appellant’s brief within the inextendible ninety-day period uniformly granted as a
matter of course by respondent court to all parties.

Respondent court in its resolution of June 9, 1976 motu
proprio dismissed petitioner’s pending appeal
before it as defendant-appellant for failure to file appellant’s brief as per
the docket report.  It turned out that
from January 1, 1976 to April 15, 1976, one Mrs. Yolanda V. Fontanilla
acted as office secretary of petitioner’s counsel Petronilo
A. de la Cruz; that on April 8, 1976 counsel handed to her for filing with
respondent court a motion for 90-day extension up to July 16, 1976 to file
appellant’s brief but that she completely forgot about it and included the same
“accidentally among the personal effects/papers that (she) brought along
with (her) when she left her job on April 15, 1976 during the Lenten Season’s
as per her affidavit of June 18, 1976 submitted with petitioner’s motion for reconsideration;
and counsel learned of her failure to file the motion for extension only upon
receipt in mid-June, 1976 of respondent court’s dismissal of the appeal.

Petitioner through counsel promptly filed its motion for reconsideration
of June 30, 1976 pleading
accident and/or excusable mistake and praying to be given the same 90-day
period up to July 16, 1976
(which it had asked for in the original motion for extension that was not
filed) to file its brief.  On July 16, 1976, petitioner did file
the appellant’s brief accompanied with a manifestation of the same date praying
for admission thereof and for setting aside of the earlier resolution
dismissing its appeal.

Private respondent-appellee filed its
opposition thereto and in its Resolution of September 1, 1976 respondent court
denied reconsideration and reinstatement of the appeal, ruling that “(T)he
opposition appears to be very well founded; appellant’s only excuse is
non-filing of motion for extension due to oversight as though just because motion
for extension is filed, it is mandatory to grant.  In view whereof, denied. “

Hence, the petition at bar.

We start from the premise that the negligence of petitioner’s
counsel’s office secretary in having failed to file with respondent court the
motion for 90-day extension entrusted to her as mitigated by counsel’s prompt
filing of appellant’s brief within the said 90-day period which is uniformly
granted as a matter of course by respondent court to all litigants should not
warrant the imposition of the capital penalty of dismissal of petitioner’s
appeal.

This premise is strengthened by the fact that petitioner’s brief
as filed shows that it is not perfunctory or dilatory in nature but on the
contrary presents strong prima facie arguments for hearing the
side of petitioner-appellant instead of an outright dismissal.  For under the appealed decision,
petitioner-appellant was sentenced to pay respondent-appellee
the sum of P118,466.67 with 14% interest thereon per annum besides P10,000.00
attorney’s fees under two (2) trade acceptances drawn by Champion Auto Supply,
Inc. (Champion) and accepted by petitioner-appellant and thereafter endorsed
and negotiated by Champion to respondent-appellee
allegedly without notice to petitioner, so much so that petitioner coursed all
its payments as the same fell due to Champion and fully paid and liquidated the
entire amount with Champion without any protest, formal or verbal, from
respondent-appellee. 
Hence, petitioner challenges the appealed judgment in that
notwithstanding Champion’s having acknowledged that petitioner’s accounts had
been fully paid, petitioner would be held liable still to pay respondent the
same amount.

The imperatives of justice, fairness and equity may therefore be
rightly invoked by petitioner for reinstatement of its appeal and determination
thereof on its merits.^[1]

As held by the Court in Gregorio vs. Court of Appeals,^[2]
“(T)he expiration of the time to file brief, unlike lateness in filing the
notice of appeal, appeal bond or record on appeal is not a jurisdictional
matter and may be waived by the parties. 
Even after the expiration of the time fixed for the filing of the brief,
the reviewing court may grant an extension of time, at least where no motion to
dismiss has been made.  Late filing or
service of briefs may be excused where no material injury has been suffered by
the appellee by reason of the delay or where there is
no contention that the appellee’s cause was
prejudiced. “

And as stressed in Obut vs.
Court of Appeals,^[3]
where compelling circumstances are cited by the appellant that would warrant an
examination and review by the appellate court as the reviewer of the findings
of fact made by the trial court, “a liberal application of the rules
becomes imperative and conversely an over strict or rigid enforcement of the reglementary period for the filing of briefs, extensions of
which for justifiable reasons are after all addressed to the sound discretion
of the court, is to be shunned and avoided lest a grave miscarriage of justice
be committed.”

On the whole, we are persuaded that the higher interests of
justice and fairness justify the setting aside of respondent court’s peremptory
dismissal of petitioner’s appeal for failure to file appellant’s brief within
the original reglementary period due to a cause not
entirely attributable to its fault or negligence^[4]
and that the exercise of the Court’s “inherent right” to reinstate an
appeal that was dismissed as the result of fraud, mistake or unavoidable
casualty^[5]
is fully justified under the circumstances of the case at bar.

ACCORDINGLY, respondent appellate court’s resolutions
dismissing petitioner’s appeal are hereby set aside.  The case is remanded to respondent court
which is directed to admit petitioner’s brief as defendant-appellant and to give
due course to its appeal and decide the same on the merits.  No costs.

Makasiar, Muñoz
Palma, Martin, Fernandez, and Guerrero,
JJ., concur.

* First Division
composed of Acting Presiding Justice Magno S. Gatmaitan and Justices Mama D. Busran
and Samuel F. Reyes.

^[1]
See Oyao vs. People, 75 SCRA 424 (Feb. 28, 1977); Cucio
vs. Court of Appeals, 57 SCRA 64 (1974).

^[2]
72 SCRA 120 (July 28, 1976),
per Martin, J.

^[3]
70 SCRA 546, 552 (Apr. 30, 1976),
per Muñoz Palma, J.

^[4]
Cf. Padasas vs. Court of Appeals, 56 SCRA 619
(1974), per Fernando, J., citing Montecines vs.
Court of Appeals, 53 SCRA 14 (1973).

^[5]
Cf. Celestino vs. Court of Appeals, 67 SCRA
22, 29 (1975), per Aquino, J.