PABLO VILORIA, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, VS. MONICA LIGOT, DEFENDANT-APPELLEE.

On May 28, 1957, plaintiff brought an action against defendant
before the Court of First Instance of Ilocos Norte for breach of marital
obligation and recovery of sums of money representing the value of
certain personal effects.

On June 11, 1957, defendant filed a motion to dismiss on the
ground that there was another action pending between the same parties
for the same cause. After plaintiff has submitted his written
opposition, the court sustained the motion and dismissed the complaint,
whereupon plaintiff took the case to the Court of Appeals. The case was
however certified to us on the ground that only questions of law are
involved.

It is contended that the court a quo erred in dismissing
the complaint on the ground that there is another action pending between
the same parties for the same cause for the reason that the two cases
do not involve the same facts and issues even if they involve the same
parties.

This contention has no merit. A cursory reading of the
complaints filed in the two cases would readily reveal that they involve
the same causes of action. Thus, in Civil Case No. 2569, the instant
case, the complaint contains the following important allegations:

“3. That the defendant on or about the 15th day of September,
1955, left the conjugal dwelling surreptitiously and without just cause
after the plaintiff proposes to her that they should temporarily reside
at Solsona, Ilocos Norte, to work in the farms and to hand the money of
the plaintiff which he gave to her for safekeepings;

“4. That since the said defendant left the conjugal dwelling she
did never return and refused and still refuses to follow the domicile of
the plaintiff without just cause;”

In Civil Case No. 2385, which was pending between the same
parties when the instant case was filed, the complaint likewise contains
the following important allegations:

“4. That on or about the 15th day of September, 1955, the
defendant, without any justifiable cause or reason, abandoned the
plaintiffs and left them in their conjugal dwelling without leaving them
any money or provisions for their support and maintenance;

“5. That since that time on, the defendant has never returned to
his wife and children nor has he ever sent provisions or money for the
use and support of his abandoned family and refuses and continues to
refuse to go back to them, thereby leaving the plaintiffs in total
hardship and misery of living;”

As it would appear, in one case, Monica Ligot charges her
husband, Pablo Viloria, with abandonment committed against her and her
minor children on September 15, 1955, while in the other case the same
husband charges his wife also with abandonment committed against him on
the same occasion, with the only difference that the husband merely
inverted the situation by imputing the commission of the same act to his
wife though the truth was, as claimed in the first case, it was he who
abandoned the conjugal dwelling leaving behind his wife and his two
children without support and protection.

The reliefs prayed for in both cases are also essentially the
same. In one case, Monica Ligot and her children pray for maintenance
and support, alimony pendente lite, accounting and delivery of
conjugal funds and properties, moral damages and attorney’s fees. In the
other, Pablo Viloria prays for an order to compel his wife to live with
him, for an accounting and delivery of the conjugal funds and
properties, moral damages and attorney’s fees.

From the foregoing, it is obvious that in the two cases there
is identity of parties, issues and reliefs, and so the second case has
no reason to exist. The lower court, therefore, did not err in
dismissing the same.

It is worthy to note that Pablo Viloria filed the complaint in
the present case almost one year after his wife had filed the previous
one, and he did so despite the fact that he could set up as a defense
in the previous case the charges he is now imputing to his wife in the
second. Why he took the instant case he was declared in default. He must
have filed the instant case to circumvent the order of the court and
avoid the legal consequences that may flow from his shortcoming.

Wherefore, the order appealed from is affirmed, with costs
against appellant.

Paras, C .J., Bengzon, Padilla, Montemayor, Labrador,
Concepcion, Reyes, J.B.L., Endencia, Barrera, and Gutierrez
David, JJ., concur,