G.R. No. L-27231. March 28, 1969
ALFONSO VISITACION, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. VICTOR MANIT, SUBSTITUTED BY HIS WIDOW LEONARDA MANIT AND DAUGHTERS VIRGINIA DUNGOG, VICTORIA BATUCAN AND MERLINDA MANIT, DEFENDANTS-…
TEEHANKEE, J.:
Appeal from a decision of the Court of First Instance of Cebu and certified by the Court of Appeals to this Court,
since the issues raised on appeal are all questions of law.
The Court of Appeals in its Resolution of January 17, 1967
certifying the case as falling within the exclusive jurisdiction of this Court
points out that this appeal is “unique” in the sense that the
appellant purports to be not the original defendant, Victor Manit,
now deceased, nor his heirs, his widow and three daughters of age, substituted
for him upon his death, per the title of this case above, but rather his
counsel of record, Atty. Jesus P. Garcia, who on April 13, 1960, after the
trial court’s adverse decision, filed the Notice of Appeal and cash bond on
Appeal as “Attorney for Victor Manit,
deceased” and on the same date filed the Record on Appeal as “Jesus
P. Garcia, In his capacity as officer of the Court and as former counsel of the
deceased. “[1]
The Record on Appeal and appeal bond were thereafter approved on April 25, 1960 by the trial court and
the case forwarded on appeal to the Court of Appeals, and in turn certified to
this Court.
The case originated on January 18, 1956 when plaintiff-appellee filed this case against defendant Victor Manit to hold him liable subsidiary as employer for the
death of plaintiff’s son, Delano Visitacion, as a
result of injuries sustained in a vehicular collision involving said
defendant’s driver Rudolfo Giron,
who, was found insolvent after having been convicted and sentenced in a
previous criminal case arising out of said death, to indemnify the victim’s
heirs in, the amount of P3,000.00.
An Answer to the complaint was filed in due course by Atty.
Garcia on behalf of defendant. On June 1, 1956, the case was heard,
without defendant or his counsel being present, and plaintiff presented his
evidence and the case was submitted for decision. On June
6,1956, defendant, however, filed a motion for new trial which was
granted by the trial court on June 9,
1956.[2]
Plaintiff presented his oral and documentary evidence and was
cross-examined by Atty. Garcia.[3]
The record further shows that on March
19, 1958, Atty. Garcia commenced the presentation of evidence on
behalf of defendant. He presented
defendant’s wife, Leonarda Manil,
who testified that her husband, Victor Manit,
“had no business of his own, because he is sickly” and that she was
the one operating and managing their transportation business of three trucks.[4]
On October 14, 1958, when the case was scheduled for continuation
of the trial, Atty. Garcia manifested that the original defendant, Victor Manit had recently died, and the trial court on the same
date directed him to furnish plaintiff’s counsel the names of the said
defendant’s heirs, so that plaintiff could amend the complaint accordingly. On August
11, 1959, plaintiff’s counsel submitted a Motion to Admit the
Amended Complaint attached thereto, furnishing copy of said pleadings to Atty.
Garcia, who acknowledged receipt thereof as “Attorney for the
defendant.” The only amendment in the complaint consisted in impleading the widow and heirs of the deceased original
defendant in substitution for him, pursuant to Rule 3, section 17 of the Rules
of Court. At the hearing of the said
motion on the same date, the trial court, after noting that there was no
opposition thereto by Atty. Garcia, admitted, the Amended Complaint in its
Order of August 11, 1959, wherein.
“(A)s prayed for by counsel for the defendants, defendants are
hereby given fifteen (15) days time within which to file an answer to said
amended complaint.”[5]
No answer to the amended complaint having been filed, the original answer
stood as defendants’ answer to the amended complaint, in accordance With Rule
11, section 3 of the Rules of Court.[6]
The case was again set for hearing on January 28, 1960 with notice to the parties
through their counsels of record. One
day before the hearing, on January 27, 1960, Atty. Garcia filed a “Motion
to Withdraw as Counsel”, alleging that “the heirs of Victor Manit have not hired (him) to represent them and
consequently, (his) continued appearance in representation of a dead client
would .be illegal” and asking the trial court “that he be relieved as
counsel in the above-entitled case for the reasons stated herein.”[7]
When the case was called on the next day, neither defendants nor
Atty. Garcia appeared, and the trial court, noting “defendants’ apparent
lack of interest as can be gleaned from the records” considered them to
have renounced their right to appear and present evidence to contest plaintiff’s
claim. It did not pass upon Atty.
Garcia’s Motion to Withdraw as Counsel and proceeded to render judgment in
favor of plaintiff, the dispositive part of which provides
as follows:
“IN VIEW OF ALL THE FOREGOING, the Court pronounces judgment
in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendants; and hereby sentences the
defendants, jointly and severally, to pay the plaintiff the amount of
P3,000.00 as indemnity for the death of Delano Visitacion,
plus P3,000.00 in concept of moral damages, and the additional sum of P2,000.00
as attorney’s fees, as well as the costs of this action.”[8]
Atty. Garcia’s Motion for Reconsideration, based on the same
grounds hereinafter discussed having been denied by the trial court, he filed
the present appeal, and assigns the following errors in his “Brief for
‘Defendant-Appellant’”:-
“First Error:
THE LOWER COURT
ERRED IN CONTINUING WITH THE CASE WITHOUT THE NEW DEFENDANTS BROUGHT TO ITS
JURISDICTION BY SUMMONS AND WITHOUT EVEN INFORMING SAID DEFENDANTS THAT THEY
HAVE BECOME PARTIES TO THE CASE.
Second Error:
THE LOWER COURT
ERRED IN IGNORING THE MOTION TO WITHDRAW AS COUNSEL FILED BY A LAWYER WHO HAD
LOST AUTHORITY TO REPRESENT A DEAD CLIENT.
Third Error:
THE LOWER COURT
ERRED IN RENDERING A PREMATURE JUDGMENT IN AN UNFINISHED CASE WHERE THE NEW
DEFENDANTS WERE NOT GIVEN THEIR DAY IN COURT.”
He prayed therein that the appellate Court render judgment:
“(a). Annulling the
decision appealed from;
(b). Remanding the case to the lower court for
further proceedings by serving summons on the defendants and giving them a
chance to present their evidence;
(c). Relieving the undersigned counsel from all
responsibility in connection with this case in view of the death of his client;
and
(d). Granting such other and further reliefs and remedies in accordance with law and
equity.” (Appellants’ Brief, p. 10)
We hold this “unique” appeal by the counsel of record,
Atty. Jesus P. Garcia, allegedly “in his capacity as officer of the Court and
as former counsel of the deceased Victor Manit” to be
untenable.
There are two fundamental errors on which Atty. Garcia’s appeal
is premised. First, if he
presents this appeal “in his capacity as officer of the Court and as former
counsel of the deceased Victor Manit”, his appeal
should be thrown out, as not being a party to the case, much less a party in
interest, he has no legal standing whatsoever to prosecute this appeal. Second, in filing his Notice of Appeal
and Cash Appeal Bond, he represented himself as “Attorney for Victor Manit, deceased”, depositing the sum of P60.00 as
appeal bond “to answer or respond for the costs which then appellate
court may award against the herein defendant-appellant,”[9]
thus representing anew to the trial Court that he was duly authorized to
present the appeal on behalf of the estate of the original defendant, Victor Manit, deceased, who had earlier been substituted in the
case by his heirs, the widow and three daughters of legal age. The trial Court was perfectly correct in
relying upon this representation in accordance with Rule 138, section 21 of the
Rules of Court which provides that “(A)n attorney is presumed to be
properly authorized to represent any case in which he appears x x x.” This appeal must
accordingly be dealt with as an appeal on behalf of said heirs as
defendants-appellants and not in the unique” concept with which Atty.
Garcia would circumscribe it.
1.
As to the first error assigned, no
error was committed by the trial court in continuing with the case and handing
down its decision against defendants-appellants. The contention that said
defendants-appellants, as substituted parties-defendants by virtue of their
being the heirs of the deceased original defendant pursuant to the trial
court’s Orders of October 24,
1958 and August 11, 1959
in accordance with Rule 3, section 17 of the Rules of Court[10],
should have been brought within the Court’s jurisdiction by summons is
fallacious. For the record shows that
Atty. Garcia at the time acknowledged receipt of the Amended Complaint
substituting said defendants-heirs for the deceased original defendant as
“Attorney for the defendants”, presented no opposition thereto, and furthermore
prayed for and was granted by the Court a period of 15 days to file an answer
to the Amended Complaint. Having been
duly impleaded and having submitted to the Court’s
jurisdiction through their counsel, Atty. Garcia, the issuance of a summons was
unnecessary. The other contention that
“there is even no record showing that these defendants were at all
informed that they had become parties to the above-captioned case”[11]
is equally fallacious. Nowhere in
appellants’ brief is there an assertion by Atty. Garcia, that, he, as their
attorney of record, and in compliance with his duty as such and as an officer
of the Court, failed or neglected to inform them of the admission of the
Amended Complaint substituting them for the deceased original defendant.
2.
Appellants claim in their second
assignment of error that the trial court erred in ignoring the Motions to
Withdraw as Counsel filed by Atty. Garcia.
In the face of Atty. Garcia’s previous representations and appearance as
counsel of record for the substituted defendants, his last-hour motion to
withdraw as counsel and disclaimer that said defendants have hired him to
represent them — which he filed one day before the date set for resumption of
the hearing came — too late and was properly ignored by the Court. The Court could not accept this turn-about on
his mere “say-so.” His motion was not verified. Aside from the fact that his said motion
carried no notice, in violation of the requirement of Rule 15, section 4 of the
Rules of Court, and could therefore be treated as a “mere scrap of
paper”,[12]
the said motion was likewise fatally defective in that it carried no notice to
his clients on record, the defendants-appellants, as required by Rule 138,
section 26 of the Rules of Court.
Furthermore, it is well settled that “(A)n attorney seeking to
withdraw must make an application to the court, for the relation does not
terminate formally until there is a withdrawal of record; at least so far as
the opposite party is concerned, the relation otherwise continues until the end
of the litigation.”[13]
The trial court’s ignoring of the last-hour motion and its handing down of its
decision on the day of the hearing, upon the failure of defendants and their
counsel to appear, in spite of their having been duly notified thereof, was in
effect a denial of counsel’s application for withdrawal. Atty. Garcia’s unexplained failure to appear
was unexcusable.
He had no right to presume that the Court would grant his
withdrawal. If he had then appeared and
insisted on his withdrawal, the trial court could then have had the opportunity
to order the appearance of defendants-appellants and verify from them the truth
of his assertion that they had not “hired him to represent them.”
3. The trial court,
therefore, did not render a “premature judgment in an unfinished case where the
defendants were not given their day in court”, as claimed in the last error
assigned by appellants. As stated
earlier, the record shows that on March 19, 1958, the original defendant’s
widow, Leonarda Manit, was
placed by Atty. Garcia on the witness stand during the deceased’s lifetime and
testified that her husband “has no business of his own, because he is
sickly” and that she was the one operating and managing their
transportation business of three trucks since as early as 1952, some years
before the filing of the complaint on January 18, 1956.[14]
In effect, the widow, Leonarda Marnit
had then submitted herself to the Court’s jurisdiction, asserting as she did
that she was the one operating the business and that her husband had no
business of his own. The widow and her
three children of age as heirs of the deceased cannot therefore claim
ignorance of the pendency of the case, and that
notwithstanding that she was the actual operator and manager of the business,
that she has been kept in complete ignorance of its subsequent developments
after her husband’s death over 10 years ago.
Almost 10 years have elapsed since they were substituted in 1959 as
defendants for the deceased, and it taxes all credibility for them to claim now
in their brief that “said new defendants did not even know that they
became parties in the Amended Complaint,”[15]
and that all this time, not the slightest effort was made by them to find out
from Atty. Garcia or from the Court for that matter what had happened to the
case nor did Atty. Garcia in compliance with his duty as an officer of the
Court inform them of the decision handed down by the Court over 9 years
ago. Having failed to appear on the day
set for trial without any justifiable explanation to the Court nor having
presented an affidavit of merits as to the existence of valid and lawful
defenses, they cannot now complain of having been deprived of their day in
Court.
The circumstances of the case and the appeal taken all together
lead to the conclusion that the last-hour withdrawal application of Atty.
Garcia and his appeal “as officer of the Court and then counsel of the
deceased” was but a device to prolong this case and delay the execution of
the judgment, which should have been carried out years ago. The imposition of double costs is therefore
in order.
ACCORDINGLY, the judgment appealed from is hereby
affirmed, with double costs to be paid by the attorney for defendants.
SO ORDERED.
Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, JBL, Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Sanchez, Ruiz Castro, Fernando, and Capistrano, JJ., concur.
Barredo, J., in the result.
[1]
Rec. on App., pp. 28-29.
[2]
Decision, Rec. on App., p. 20.
[3]
T.S.N., October 9, 1956.
[4]
T.S.N., March 19, 1958, p.
3, 16.
[5]
Rec. on App., pp. 17-18.
[6]
Formerly Rule 9, section 3 of the Rules of Court.
[7]
Rec. on App., pp. 18-19.
[8]
Rec. on App., p. 22.
[9]
Rec. on App., p. 29.
[10]
The pertinent portion of this Rule provides:
“x x x The
heirs of the deceased (party) 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.”
[11] Appellants”Brief, p. 6.
[12] Magno. v. Hon. Montano Ortiz, etc. et at. G. R.
L-22670, Jan. 31, 1969.
[13]
6 C.J. 674.
[14]
T.S.N., March 19, 1958, pp.
3, 14-16.
[15]
Appellants’ Brief, p. 9.