AGUSTIN O. CASEÑAS, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, VS. CONCEPCION SANCHEZ VDA. DE ROSALES (SUBSTITUTED BY HER HEIRS), ROMEO S. ROSALES, ET AL., DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES.

This is an appeal from the order of dismissal entered by the
Court of First
Instance of Agusan in Civil Case No. 780, entitled Agustin Caseñas v.
Concepcion Sanchez Vda. de Rosales, et al.

On August 21, 1952, Rodolfo Arañas and Agustin O. Caseñas filed
with the Court of First Instance of Agusan, under Civil Case No. 261, a
complaint for spe­cific performance and enforcement of their alleged right
under a certain deed of sale, and damages against the spouses Jose A. Rosales
and Concepcion Sanchez.  They alleged
that sometime in 1939, Agustin O. Caseñas acquired from Rodolfo Arañas, under a
deed of assignment, the latter’s rights and interest over a parcel of land covering an area of more or less than 2,273
square meters and designated as Lot. No. 445-A of the Butuan Cadastre No. 84
(Psd 4943); that Rodolfo Arañas, in turn, acquired the said pro­perty from the
spouses Jose A. Rosales and Concepcion Sanchez under a deed of sale executed on
March 18, 1939 under the terms of which, however, the actual transfer of the
aforesaid land unto the vendee would be made only on or before February 18,
1941; and that despite the above documented transactions, and despite the
arrival of the stipulated period for the execution of the final deed of
transfer, the vendors spouses refused to fulfill their obligation to effect
such transfer of the said lot to the vendee, Rodolfo Arañas, or his assignee,
the herein appellant, Agustin O.
Caseñas.  Thus, the principal relief prayed for in the
above complaint was for an order directing the defendants-spouses to
“execute a deed of absolute sale of the property described in the
complaint in favor of the assignee, plaintiff Agustin O. Caseñas.

After the defendants
spouses had filed their answer to the above complaint, but before trial, the counsel
for the plaintiffs gave notice to the trial court that plaintiff Rodolfo Arañas
and defendant Jose A. Rosales had both died. 
In view of the said manifestation, the lower court, in an order dated
April 27, 1956, directed the surviving
plaintiff, Agustin O. Caseñas, to amend the complaint to effect the
necessary subsitution of parties thereon. 
The said surviving plaintiff, however, failed altogether to comply with
the aforementioned order of April 27, 1956 to the end that on July 18, 1957,
the lower court issued the following order:

“Until this date no amended complaint was filed by the
attorney for the plaintiffs.  This shows
abandonment and lack of interest on the part of the plaintiffs.  This being an old case, for failure on the
part of the counsel for the plaintiffs to comply with the order of this Court
the same is hereby dismissed without pronounce­ment as to costs.”

As no appeal was taken from the above order of dis­missal, the same, in due time, became final.

On April 18, 1960, Agustin
O. Caseñas, the same plaintiff Caseñas in Civil Case No. 261, filed with the same Court of
First Instance of Agusan, under Civil Case No. 780, another complaint against
the widow and heirs of the late Jose A. Rosales “to quiet, and for
reconveyance of, title to real property, with damages.” This suit referred
itself to the very same property litigated under Civil Case No. 261 and as­serted
exactly the same allegations as those made in the former complaint, to
wit:  “that the plaintiff (Agustin
O. Caseñas) has acquired the above-described property by purchase from its
previous owner, Rodolfo Arañas, now deceased,……; and said Rodolfo Arañas had in
turn acquired the same property by virtue of another deed of sale executed by
Jose A. Rosales, now also deceased;” (Par. 3, Complaint) “that under
the terms and stipulations of paragraph 2 of the deed of sale (between Rosales
and Arañas),…… Jose A. Rosales was to hold title to the land in question in
favor of Rodolfo Arañas or the latter’s assigns and successors in interest for
a period of five (5) years from February 19, 1936, at the expiration of which
said Jose A. Rosales was to execute a document convey­ing absolutely the title
to the land in question in favor of the aforementioned Rodolfo Arañas or his as­signs
and successors in interest” (Par. 9, Complaint); “despite which
obligation the defendants refused, even after the expiration of the stipulated
period to “con­vey title to the land in question and to execute the
corresponding document covering the same.” (Par. 12, Complaint) In the
premises, the plaintiff prayed for judgment “quieting the title of the
plaintiff to the land in question and ordering the defendants to ex­ecute a
deed of conveyance of the same in favor of the said plaintiff” plus costs
and damages.

To the above complaint, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss
on several grounds, namely:  res judi­cata
prescription, lack of cause of action, failure to include indispensable
parties, and that the con­tract subject of the complaint was void ab initio.  After the plaintiff had filed his opposition
to the above motion, the lower court issued the order under appeal dis­missing
the complaint.  Of the above grounds,
though, the lower court relied alone on the defendants’ plea of res judicata,
lack of cause of action and prescrip­tion. 
The material portion of this order of dismissal reads:

“The Court, however, believes that this action is barred by
prior judgment.  The order of dismissal
in Civil Case No. 261 was already final and has the effect of an adjudication
upon the merits.  The parties in Civil
Case No. 261 and in this case are substantially the same; the subject matter is the same and there is identity of
cause of action.  All the elements of res
judicata are therefore present

“Moreover, the complaint states no cause of action if its
purpose is to quiet title, because the plaintiff has as yet no title to the
land in question.  Precisely, this action
is brought in order to acquire
or secure title by compelling the defendants to execute a deed of sale in favor
of the plaintiff.  However, this action
for specific performance cannot also pros­per because being based upon an
agreement in writing it is already barred by prescription as the period of ten
years has long expired when the present complaint was filed.

The appeal at bar assails the above determination that Civil Case
No. 780 is barred by a prior judgment and by prescription and that the same
states no cause of action.  It is on these
issues, therefore, that this Court shall dispose of this appeal.

We find for the
appellant.

When certain of the parties to Civil Case No. 261 died and due
notice thereof was
given to the trial court, it devolved on the said court to order, not
the amendment of the complaint, but the appearance of the legal representatives
of the accused in accordance with the proce­dure and manner outline in Rule 3,
Section 17 of the Rules of Court, which provides:

“Sec. 17. Death of party. 
After a party dies and the claim is not thereby extinguished, the court
shall order, upon proper notice, the legal representative of the deceased to
appear and to be substituted for the deceased,
within a period of thirty (30) days, or within such time as may be
granted.  If the legal represent­ative
fails to appear within said time, the
court may order the opposing party to procure the appointment of a legal representative of the
deceased within a time to be specified by the court, and the representative
shall im­mediately appear for and on behalf of the interest of the
deceased.  The court charges involved in
procuring such appointment, if defrayed by the opposing party, may be re­covered
as costs.  The heirs of the deceased may
be allowed to be substituted for the de­ceased, without requiring the
appointment of an executor or administrator and the court may appoint guardian
ad litem for the minor heirs.”

In the case of Barrameda v. Barbara, 90 Phil. 718, this court
held that an order to amend the complaint, before the proper substitution of
parties as directed by the aforequoted rule has been effected, is void and imposes upon the
plaintiff no duty to comply therewith to the end that an order dismissing the
said complaint, for such non-compliance would similarly be void.  In a subsequent case, Ferreira et al v.
Gonzalez, et al., G.R. No. L-11567, July 17, 1958, this court affirmed a similar conclusion on the
determination that the continu­ance of a proceedings during the pendency of
which a party thereto dies, without such party having been validly sub­stituted
in accordance with the rules, amounts to a
“lack of jurisdiction.”

The facts of this case fit four squares into the Barrameda case
abovecited, save for the minor
variance that in the former two of
the litigants died while only one predeceased the case in Barrameda.  Here, as in Bar­rameda, during the pendency
of civil case, notice was given to the trial court of the deaths of one of the
plaintiffs and one of the defendants in it. 
Instead of ordering the substitution of the deceased is legal repre­sentatives
in accordance with Rule 3, section 17, of the Rules of Court, the trial court
directed the surviving plaintiff to amend the complaint and when the latter
failed to comply therewith, the said court dismissed the complaint for such
non-compliance.  We must hold, therefore,
as We did
in Barrameda that inasmuch as there was no obligation on the part of the
plaintiff-appellant herein to amend his complaint in Civil Case No. 261, any
such imposition being void, his failure to comply with such an order did not
justify the dismissal of his com­plaint. Grounded as it was upon a void order,
the dis­missal was itself void.

Consequently, as the
dismissal of Civil Case No. 261 was void, it clearly may not be asserted to bar
the subsequent prosecution of the same or identical claim.

Finally, We find ourselves unable to share the appellees’ view
that the appellant’s complaint under Civil Case No. 780 failed to state a
sufficient cause of action.  A cause of
action is an act or omission of one party in violation of the legal right or
rights of the other (Ma-ao Sugar Central v. Barrios, 79 Phil. 666) and both
these elements were clearly alleged in the aforesaid complaint.

Insofar as the issue of prescription is concerned, this Court is
of the view that it should defer resolution on it until after Civil Case No.
780 shall have been tried on the merits considering that one of the defenses
set up by the appellant against the said issue is the existence of a trust
relationship over the property in dispute.

IN VIEW OF ALL THE
FOREGOING, the order dated
January 20, 1961 dismissing Civil Case No. 780 is hereby set aside and the said
case is ordered remanded to the court of origin for trial on the merits.  Costs against the appellees.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, Dizon, Makalintal, Bengzon, Zaldivar,
Sanchez and Castro, JJ., concur.