PABLO COTAOCO, PETITIONER, VS. RAFAEL DINGLASAN, JOSE L. UY, ET AL., RESPONDENTS.

It appears that Pablo Cotaoco, the petitioner, crought an
action against Jose L. Uy and others to recover certain real property and a sum
of moeny by way of rents and damages. After the plaintiff had introduced his
evidence and rested, the defendants, through counsel, filed a motion to dismiss
action for the alleged reason that the plaintiff was shown not to be the real
party in interest but his brother, Mariano Cotaoco. That motion was denied,
whereupon the plaintiff filed a motion for judgment on the merits. The latter
motion was likewise denied, as was also a subsequent motion for
reconsideration.

The plaintiff now applies from this Court a command to the
trial judge to decide the case as he prayed in the court below and to restrain
His Honor from receiving evidence for the defendants or from taking any further
step. In support of the petition, he cites Moody, Aronson & Co. vs. Hotel
Bilbao, 50 Phil., 198; Gonzalez Castro vs. Azaola, 63 Phil., 841; and Arroyo vs.
Andrea Azur, 76 Phil., 493.

We do not think the petitioner is entitled to the relief
applied for. The cases cited do not sustain his position. It will be observed
that in each of those cases the defendant appealed. In the present case no
appeal was taken from the court’s order.

The decisions relied upon do not rest on any positive law, but
on general “rules which will avoid lengthy and expensive litigations and which
will assist in the speedy disposition of cases.” The mere filing of a motion to
dismiss and the adverse ruling thereon by the trial court do not create a
multiplicity of suits which the law abhors; it is the prosecution of an appeal
from the court’s decision that does. Before a case has left the hands of the
trial court, the latter, at the very least, ought to have discretionary power to
allow the presentation of evidence by the defendant. In fact the refusal of the
lower court to bar the defendants form introducing evidence and to decide the
cause solely on the evidence already adduced, is in accord with this Court’s
admonition in Castro vs. Azaola, supra. In that case the court stressed
the advisability of deferring action on a motion to dismiss untill all the
evidence was in. It said: “This Court is of the opinion that in cases like this
the defendant should be required to present his evidence instead of acting upon
his motion to dismiss, so that should the court find the decision to be
erroneous, it would not have to remand the case to the court of origin for
further proceedings, * * *” The court’s denial of the motion to dismiss amounted
in its results to a compliance with that injuction. In denying the motion
instead of not acitng thereon, the court has not closed the door to the
dismissal of the case on ghe grounds stated in the motion after both parties
have submitted the case for decision. On the other hand, the situation envisaged
by the court in the Azaola decision was likely to materialize in the case at bar
if the tiral court were to exclude the defendants’ evidence and this Court
should reverse the decision, because the motion to dismiss is not predicated on
insufficiency of the evidence on the issues joined in the pleadings, but on the
alleged fact that the plaintiff is a mere dummy of his brother. The motion to
dismiss raises a side issue leaving entirely out o fth epicutre the cardinal
defense that the deed fo sale with a mortgage, on which the action is based,
“does not express the true intent and agreement of the parties,” a defense which
could not properly be determined on the plaintiff’s proofs alone.

We are not prepared to say that the respondent judge committed
a mistake. This conclusion makes superfluous discussion of the special plea that
mandamus does not lie in the case at bar.

The petition is denied with costs against the petitioner.

Ozaeta, Paras, Feria, Pablo, Perfecto, Bengzon,
Montemayor, and Reyes, JJ., concur.

Moran, C. J.:

I concur in the result.