NATIONAL HOME MORTGAGE FINANCE CORPORATION, PETITIONER-APPELLEE, V. SPOUSES LEONCIO & PERLITA PADOLINA, OPPOSITORS-APPELLANTS.

National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation versus Spouses Padolina

The Case

This is a civil case in which the National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation, the petitioner-appellee, obtained a favorable judgment against the spouses Leoncio and Perlita Padolina, the oppositors-appellants, before the Regional Trial Court. The spouses sought to overturn that judgment on appeal, but they never filed their appellants' brief. What brings the matter before the Supreme Court is therefore not the merits of the loan controversy but a single, hard procedural question: whether an appeal may be dismissed when the appellant fails to file the required brief within the period fixed by the Rules, even after an extension was granted. The case matters because it restates, in the clearest terms, that the right to appeal is a statutory privilege that must be exercised strictly in the manner and within the time the law prescribes.

Procedural History

The case began in the Regional Trial Court, which rendered judgment in favor of the National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation. The spouses appealed to the Court of Appeals. In the appellate court they moved for an extension of time to file their appellants' brief, and the Court of Appeals granted the motion, giving them until the middle of September 2013 to file it. No brief was ever filed. The Court of Appeals then issued a resolution ordering the spouses to show cause why the appeal should not be dismissed for failure to file the required brief, citing Section 1, paragraph (e) of Rule 50 of the Rules of Court. Instead of filing the brief, the spouses filed a motion asking that the case be remanded to the Regional Trial Court in lieu of an appellants' brief, claiming they had not been given the opportunity to present evidence below. The Court of Appeals, through the resolution now under review, dismissed the appeal. The matter reached the Supreme Court on the petition of the National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation, and the Court resolved the pending incidents in the decision before us.

Facts

The National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation won its case against the spouses Padolina in the Regional Trial Court. Seeking to reverse that judgment, the spouses went up to the Court of Appeals and asked for more time to file their appellants' brief. The Court of Appeals granted the motion, extending their period so that they had until the sixteenth of September 2013 to file the brief.

That deadline passed, and still no appellants' brief was filed. A report of the judicial records division confirmed that as of the middle of October 2013 no brief had been submitted. The Court of Appeals then issued a resolution ordering the spouses to show cause, within five days, why the appeal should not be dismissed under Section 1, paragraph (e) of Rule 50. The spouses received that resolution at the end of January 2014.

Rather than file the brief, the spouses filed a motion to remand the case to the Regional Trial Court in lieu of an appellants' brief. They asserted that they had not been given the opportunity to present evidence before the trial court, which, they said, made it difficult for them to prepare their brief. The motion was couched in general terms and offered no support for its conclusion. The Court of Appeals found this insufficient to excuse the failure to file the brief and dismissed the appeal.

Issues

• Whether or not the spouses' motion to remand the case to the Regional Trial Court in lieu of an appellants' brief may save them from the consequence of failing to file the required brief within the extended period.
• Whether or not the appeal should be dismissed for failure to file and serve the required appellants' brief under Section 1, paragraph (e) of Rule 50 of the Rules of Court.

Applicable Provisions

Section 1 of Rule 50 of the Rules of Court provides:

Section 1. Grounds of dismissal of appeal. An appeal may be dismissed by the Court of Appeals, on its own motion or on that of the appellee, on the following grounds: x x x (e) Failure of the appellant to serve and file the required number of copies of his brief or memorandum within the time provided by these Rules. x x x

This is the provision under which the Court of Appeals ordered the spouses to show cause and under which the appeal was ultimately dismissed.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the motion to remand did not save the spouses from their negligence. The motion was couched in general terms and was vague, and its conclusion that the spouses were denied their day in court was unsupported; it was therefore wanting in substance. More importantly, the Court said, the most prudent way to seek relief, if the spouses truly had been denied their day in court, was to avail of the remedy of appeal itself, not to move that the case be remanded to the court of origin. Counsel is presumed to know that an appeal throws the whole case open for review.

On the second issue, the Court held that the failure to file the appellants' brief within the reglementary period, and despite an extension, warranted dismissal. It stressed that the right to appeal may be exercised only in the manner and in accordance with the provisions of law, and that an appeal must be perfected in the manner and within the period fixed by law, which requirement is not only mandatory but jurisdictional. The Court put the principle plainly: a right to appeal is not a constitutional, natural, or inherent right, but a statutory privilege of statutory origin, available only if granted or provided by statute. The spouses had been given reasonable time in the interest of justice and still failed to comply, and litigation must end at some point.

Doctrine

The right to appeal is not a constitutional, natural, or inherent right; it is a statutory privilege of statutory origin, available only if and as granted by statute. It must be exercised only in the manner and within the period fixed by law, and perfection of an appeal in that manner and time is mandatory and jurisdictional. Under Section 1, paragraph (e) of Rule 50, the Court of Appeals may dismiss an appeal, on its own motion or that of the appellee, for the appellant's failure to serve and file the required brief within the time provided by the Rules, and a vague, unsupported motion to remand the case in lieu of a brief does not excuse that failure. Once a case is finally adjudged, the parties must accept victory or defeat, for litigation must end at some point.

Disposition

The National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation prevailed: the Supreme Court dismissed the spouses' appeal for failure to file the required appellants' brief under Rule 50, Section 1, paragraph (e) of the Rules of Court.

Remember This

Memorize the line that the right to appeal is not a constitutional, natural, or inherent right but a statutory privilege of statutory origin, exercised only in the manner and within the period fixed by law. Examiners use this case on the mandatory and jurisdictional character of perfecting an appeal, and on the dismissal of an appeal for failure to file the appellants' brief under Rule 50.