ANITA U. LORENZANA, PETITIONER, VS. POLLY CAYETANO AND COURT OF APPEALS, RESPONDENTS.

Appeal by certiorari from the judgment of the Court of Appeals
in CA-G.R. No. 31082-R entitled “Polly Cayetano,
Plaintiff-Appellant vs. Anita U. Lorenzana, et al.,
defendants-Appellees” and from the resolution of
the Court deny­ing petitioner’s motion for reconsideration.

We find in this case a perfect example that proves the validity
of that classic legal dictum that a man’s house is his castle where the wind
may enter, the rain may enter but neither the King nor the King’s men may enter
without the consent of the owner.

The records show that in 1958, petitioner filed in the Municipal
Court of Manila ejectment cases for nonpayment of
rentals against her tenants occupying different stalls in that quonset but situated in the San Lazaro
Estate (corner of C.M. Recto St. and Quezon Blvd.,
Manila, adjacent to the old Bilibid Compound) with a
floor area of 360 square meters, leased by her (which she afterwards purchased)
from the Manila Railroad Company and later from the Bureau of Lands, together
with the use of the land north and south of the quonset
hut with an area of 340 square meters. 
The private respondent, on the other hand, occupied the area north of
the quonset hut, which area
was also leased by her from the Manila Railroad Company and subsequently from
the Bureau of Lands, and on which her house stood.  Hence, the areas occupied by the two
principal protagonists are adjacent to each other.

The ejectment cases having been decided
by the Muni­cipal Court in favor of the petitioner, the same were ap­pealed to
the Court of First instance of Manila,
Branch I.  The Court affirmed the
decision of the municipal court and ordered the defendants-tenants to vacate
the premises leased.  Upon refusal of the
tenants to vacate the premises, the court granted a partial execution of the
judgment and on July 20, 1959,
a writ of demolition was issued, specifically commanding the Sheriff of Manila
“to demolish the premises subject of the above-named cases” (Record
on Appeal, p. 4).

Thereupon on July 27, 1959, petitioner together with her counsel,
Atty. Nereo Paculdo and
Deputy Sheriff Jose L. Cruz proceeded and entered the premises of the respondent
and in spite of her protests that she was not a party to the ejectment cases in which the demolition order was, secured
and that her premises was not subject of said ejectment
cases, they destroyed the latter’s fence including flower pots, trellises, and
electric installations and carted away the materials thereof and built another
fence 5 meters into the premises of the respondent, boring holes into the
cemented garden or “patio” of her house.

On August 3, 1959,
respondent presented to the court a motion to declare petitioner, her counsel
and the deputy sheriff guilty of contempt; that they be punished and held
liable in damages to the petitioner.  The
presiding judge held the motion in abeyance until the decision of the court in
the ejectment cases shall have been rendered.

Acting upon the petitioner’s ex–parte
motion and ur­gent motion for demolition in the two appealed ejectment cases, Civil Case No. 29664 and Civil Case No.
29665, the court on September 28, 1959 ordered that “a writ of demolition
be issued ordering the Sheriff of Manila or any of his deputies to demolish any
or all improvements erected and existing on the parcel of land subject of the
above-entitled cases which consists of an area of about 700 square
meters.” (Record on Appeal, p. 55).  The writ of demoli­tion was issued by the
Sheriff on September 30, 1959.

Upon procurement of this order of demolition, petitioner,
together with her counsel and the deputy sheriff proceeded once more to
respondent’s premises on October 1,
1959 and moved the fence where it was illegally placed by them on July 27, 1959.  On the same day, October 1, 1959, respondent filed an urgent motion for
the suspension of the execution of the writ of demolition, which motion was
denied by the court the next day, October
2, 1959.

The records further establish that on November 27, 1959,
petitioner, her lawyer, Atty. Paculdo, and Sheriff
Cruz went back and moved the fence 1 meter more into the premises of the
respondent; that on February 19, 1960, the respondent filed an ex–parte motion to withdraw the petition for contempt
on the ground that “conferring with Judge Bayona
after this petition was heard, the petitioner was informed that not being a party
to the above-numbered cases, she is like an intruder to act on her
petition.” (Record on Appeal, p. 80).

On October 1, 1959,
the respondent Polly Cayetano filed in the Court of
First Instance of Manila, Civil Case No. 42001 against the petitioner Anita U. Lorenzana, Atty. Nereo J. Paculdo and Deputy Sheriff Jose L. Cruz for damages with
mandatory injunction.

The defendants therein filed a motion to dismiss, which was
opposed by the plaintiff, and the Court, Branch XVII, denied on December 19, 1959 the motion to
dismiss and the petition for issuance of the writ of preliminary injunction.  The defendants filed their answers.

Under date of March 9,
1962, the Court issued the De­cision dismissing the complaint of
the plaintiff as well as the counterclaim of the defendants Anita U. Lorenzana and Atty. Nereo J. Paculdo for lack of sufficient evidence.  A motion for reconsideration was filed by the
plaintiff but denied by the Court.  Not
satisfied with the Decision of the Court, Polly Cayetano
appealed to the Court of Appeals.  The
Court of Appeals reversed the decision appealed from, and ordered
“defendant-appellee Lorenzana
to restore to appellant the possession of the property invaded and occupied by
her as shown in Exh. L-1 to L-4; to put back
appellant’s fence and other valuable improvements in their place before the
writ of demolition was served; ordering defendants, Lorenzana
and Cruz, to pay joint­ly and severally to the plaintiff-appellant the sum of
P5,500.00 as actual and moral damages, and pay the costs, except defendant, Paculdo.”

The above Decision is now sought to be reviewed in the instant
petition for certiorari upon the following assignment of errors:  I.  That the Court of Appeals erred in
holding that the writ of demolition issued by Branch I of the Court of First
Instance of Manila presided over by Judge Bayona
could not be legally effected against respon­dent Polly Cayetano;
II.  That the Court of
Appeals erred in holding that the private respondent’s failure to pursue her
remedy before a higher court did not amount to a waiver of her rights; III.  The Court of Appeals erred in holding in
effect that a writ of execution and an order of demolition can be collaterally
attacked in an action specifically brought for recovery of damages; and IV.  The Court of Appeals erred in holding that
the issuance of the writ of demolition by Judge Bayona
was in violation of Section 14, Rule 39.

This case hinges on the legal effects of the writs of demolition
issued in the ejectment cases wherein the respondent
was not a party thereto.  The writs were
is­sued by virtue of the judgment rendered by the Court of First Instance of
Manila (Branch I), the dispositive por­tion of which
states, as follows:  “WHEREFORE,
judgment is rendered condemning the defendants xxx to vacate the premises;
ordering herein defendants xxx to pay rent to plaintiff xxx plus attorney’s
fees and costs.”

The petitioner contends that the respondent hav­ing voluntarily
appeared before the court and invoked its jurisdiction seeking affirmative relief
by filing on August 3, 1959, a petition to declare Lorenzana,
Atty. Paculdo and Sheriff Cruz in contempt and
holding them liable in damages, and by filing on October 1, 1959, an urgent
petition for the suspension of the execution of the writ of demolition, she
could no longer contest the efficacy of the writ.  There is no merit to this contention and We find no error in the ruling of the Court of Appeal’s that
the writ of demolition could not be legally effected against the respondent.

It must be noted that respondent was not a party to any of the 12
ejectment cases wherein the writs of demolition had
been issued; she did not make her appearance in and during the pendency of these ejectment
cases.  Respondent only went to court to
protect her property from demolition after the judgment in the ejectment cases had become final and executory.  Hence, with respect to the judgment in said ejectment cases, respondent remains a third person to such
judgment, which does not bind her;^[1]
nor can its writ of execution be enforced against her since she was not
afforded her day in court in said ejectment cases.^[2]

The vital legal point here is that respondent did not derive her
right or interest from the defendants-tenants nor from the plaintiff-landlord
(the herein petitioner) but from the Bureau of Lands from which she had leased
the property.  She is neither a party nor
successor in interest to any of the litigants in the ejectment
cases.

We also find no merit in the contention of the peti­tioner that
respondent baying been duly heard by the Court, she was not deprived of her day
in court and was accorded the due process of law.

It cannot be said that the constitutional requirements of due
process were sufficiently complied with because the respondent had been duly
heard.  Indeed, respondent was heard but
simply hearing her did not fulfill the basic conditions of procedural due
process in courts.  When respondent
appeared before the court to protect and preserve her property, the Court had
not lawfully acquired jurisdiction over the property of the respondent because
the premises of the respondent was not included in the ejectment
cases and the judgment in said cases could not affect her property, much less
demolish the same.  In the leading case
of El Banco-Español-Filipino v. Palanca^[3]
cited in Macabingkil v. Yatco,
et al.,^[4]
We laid down the court’s constitutional requirements of due process, thus ?

“As applied to judicial proceedings… it may be laid down
with certainty that the requirements of due process is satisfied if the
following conditions are present, namely: 
(1) There must be a court or tribunal clothed with judicial power to
hear and determine the matter before it; (2) jurisdiction must be lawfully
acquired over the person of the defendant or over the property which is the
subject of the pro­ceedings; (3) the defendant must be given an opportunity to
be heard; and (4) judgment must be rendered upon lawful hearing.”

Respondent pursued various steps to protect her pro­perty from
the invasion and encroachment of the petitioner, abetted by her counsel and the
deputy Sheriff.  She filed a motion for
contempt; she protested to the Sheriff of Manila; she appealed to the Director
of the Bureau of Lands; she filed an urgent motion to suspend the writ of demo­lition.  Although the motions for contempt and for
suspension were heard by the court, such actions taken after the judgment had
become final and executory did not make the
respondent a party litigant in the ejectment
cases.  The respondent remained a stranger
to the case and she cannot be bound by the judgment rendered therein, nor by the writs of execution and demolition issued in
pursuance to said judgment.  Intervening
as a prejudiced owner of improvements being wrongly demolished merely to oppose
such order of demolition, upon learning that the said order was directed
against premises not her own, is not the same as being a party to the suit to
the extent of being bound by the judgment in the case where such order of demolition
was issued.^[5]
Furthermore, it must be noted that said petitions were filed after the
promulgation of the decision in the ejectment cases
and while in the process of execution. 
It is not proper to speak of an intervention in a case already
terminated by final judgment.^[6]

Respondent, not being bound thereby, may avail herself of the
proper action afforded by Section 17, Rule 39 of the Revised Rules of Court
which provides the proceed­ings where property levied upon is claimed by a
third person, stating as follows:

“x x x The officer is not liable for damages, for the taking or
keeping of the property, to any third-party claimant unless a claim is made by
the latter and unless an action for damages is brought by him against the
officer within one hundred twenty (120) days from the date of the filing of the
bond.  But nothing herein contained
shall prevent such cIaimant or any third person from
vindicating his claim to the property by any proper action.  x x x” (Underscoring supplied)

Respondent acted within and exercised her right when she filed
the proper action to vindicate her claim afforded to her by Sec. 17, Rule 39 of
the Revised Rules of Court, against the intruders or trespassers before the
Court of First Instance of Manila, Branch XVII, in Civil Case No. 42001 for
damages with mandatory injunction.  If
she did not insist on her motion for contempt which the court held in abeyance
and was later withdrawn by her, if she did not appeal from the order of the
court denying her motion to suspend the writ of demolition, such failure did
not amount to a waiver of her right to pursue the proper action or remedy
provided to her by the Rules of Court. 
It is of no moment that the respondent did not file a motion to quash
the writ of execution or file a petition for relief under Rule 38 of the
Revised Rules of Court or file a petition for certiorari and prohibition
with a higher court after her petition to suspend the writ of demolition had
been denied as suggested by petitioner. 
The law has specifically given her the remedies to vindicate her claim
to the pro­perty.  When the property of
one person is unlawfully taken by another, the former has a right of action
against the latter for the recovery of the property or for damages for the taking
or retention, and he is entitled to his choice of these two remedies.^[7]

We find no legal compulsion for respondent to
pursue the remedies suggested by the petitioner, for the rights of a
third-party claimant should not be decided in the action where the third-party
claim has been presented, but in a separate action to be instituted by the
third person.^[8]

In Queblar v. Garduño,^[9]
this Court held that:

“Strictly speaking, the appeal interposed by the third-party
claimant-appellant is improper, because she was not one of the parties
in the action who were exclusively Venancio Queblar as plaintiff and Leonardo Garduño
as defendant.  Considering the provisions
of said section 451 of the Code of Civil Procedure, as amended by Act No. 4108,
the appealed order was not appealable.  The appeal that should have been interposed
by her, if the term “appeal” may properly be employed, is a separate reivindicatory action against the execution creditor or the
purchaser of her property after the sale at public auction, or a complaint for
damages to be charged against the bond filed by the judgment creditor in favor
of the sheriff.”

In Potenciano v. Dineros,^[10]
We ruled that:

“We see no merit in the claim that the denial or dismissal of Potenciano’s claim in the court below constitutes a bar to
the present action.  Potenciano,
it is true, did not appeal, from the disapproval of his claim.  But it should be borne in mind that appeal is
not proper in such cases.  (Queblar v. Garduño,
supra).  As was said in that case, the
appeal that should be interposed “if the term ‘appeal’ may properly be
employed, is a separate reivindicatory action against
the execution creditor or the purchaser of the property after the sale at
public auction, or complaint for damages to be charged against the bond filed
by the judgment creditor in favor of the sheriff.” Such reivindicatory action is resurged to the third-party
claimant by Section 15 (now 17) of Rule 39 des­pite disapproval of his claim by
the court itself.  (Planes v. Madrigal
& Co., supra; Lara v. Bayona, L-7920, May 10,
1955), and it is the action availed of by Potenciano
in this case.”

The petitioner contends that a writ of execution and an order of
demolition cannot be collaterally attacked in an action specifically brought
for recovery of damages, and that said action for damages and mandatory
injunction (Civil Case No. 42001) filed by the respondent with Branch XVII was
nothing less than an action to review the validity of the order of demolition
issued by Branch I in the ejectment cases which have
long become final.

We are not in accord with this contention.  The civil case filed by the respondent for
damages and the restoration of the property destroyed and her premises taken
unlawfully under the writ of demolition was not brought to reverse, impugn or
set aside the judgment in the ejectment cases but to
declare that the writ of demolition should not have been applied to that
portion of the land and the building occupied by her, as correctly stated by
the Court of Appeals.  To put it
succinctly, the judgment and the demolition orders were valid and binding to
the tenants but not to the respondent and her property.  Fundamentally, it is the wrongful execution
of the judg­ment and the writ that is the basis of the claim for damages.

If the judgment and the writs of execution and demolition were
alleged in the complaint for damages, this was not necessarily a collateral
attack on said processes of another branch of the Court but averments to prove
the wrongful, illegal and unauthorized exercise of the writs; it is merely a
statement of the legal basis which the sheriff exceeded, abetted by the petitioner.

The contention of the petitioner that a branch of a Court of
First Instance cannot interfere with or nullify decisions, orders or proceedings
of another branch of the same court and therefore the writs of execution and
demolition cannot be impugned is not exactly on all fours with and hence not
applicable to the case at bar.  The
settled rule has been clearly laid down in Abiera
v. Court of Appeals^[11]
wherein the Court, after a review of the doctrines in Cabigao
v. Del Rosario & Lim, 44 Phil. 192; Manila herald Publishing Co.,
Inc., v. Ramos, 88 Phil. 94; Hacbang,
et al. v. Hon. Clementino Diez,
8 SCRA 103 (May 30, 1963) and National Power Corporation v. Hon. Jesus de Veyra, 3 SCRA 646 (Dec. 22, 1961), held that ?

“No court has power to interfere by injunction with the
judgments or decrees of a court of concurrent or coordinate jurisdiction having
equal power to grant the relief sought by injunction.

For this doctrine to apply, the injunction
issued by one court must interfere with the judgment or decree issued by another
court of equal or coordinate jurisdiction and the relief sought by such injunction
must be one which could be granted by the court which rendered the judgment or
issued the decree.

Under Section 17 of Rule 39 a third person who claims property
levied upon on execution may vindicate such claim by action.  A judgment rendered in his favor – declaring
him to be the owner of the property — would not constitute interference with
the powers or processes of the court which rendered the judgment to enforce
which the execution was levied.  If that
be so — and it is so because the property, being that of a stranger, is not subject
to levy — then an interlocutory order, such as injunction, upon a claim and
prima facie showing of ownership by the claimant, cannot be considered as such
interference either.

The right of a person who claims to be the owner of property levied
upon on execution to file a third-party claim with the sheriff is not
exclusive, and he may file an action to vindicate his claim even if the
judgment creditor files an indemnity bond in favor of the sheriff to answer for
any damages that may be suffered by the third-party claimant.  By “action,” as stated in the Rule,
what is meant is a separate and independent action.”

With respect to the fourth assignment of error, petitioner’s
contention appears to be quite tenable in that under Sec. 14, Rule 39 of the Revised
Rules of Court which the Court of Appeals applied, the notice required before
demolition of the improvements on the property subject of the execution, is
notice to the judgment debtor, and not to a stranger or third party to the case
like the private respondent herein. 
Nonetheless, the claim that the Court of Appeals misconstrued the aforecited Rule is as immaterial and inconsequential as the
application of this legal provision is superflous and
unnecessary for the affirmance of the Court’s decision.

The Manifestation filed by petitioner in the records dated June 1, 1977 with Annexes A, B, C and
D, is Noted.

IN VIEW OF ALL THE FOREGOING, the petition herein is
dismissed, and the appealed judgment is affirmed, with costs against
petitioner.

SO ORDERED.

Makasiar, Martin, and Fernandez, JJ., concur.

Teehankee, J., (Chairman), concurs on the specific grounds stated in J. Muñoz Palma’s concurring
opinion.

Muñoz Palma, J., concurs with a brief opinion.

^[1]
Cf. Santiago v. Calumpag & Estor, L-14615, October
31, 1964, 12 SCRA 292.

^[2]
Cf. DBP v. Bautista, L-21363, November 29, 1968, 26 SCRA 357.

^[3]
37 Phil. 934 (1918)

^[4]
No. L-23174, September 18, 1967,
21 SCRA 151

^[5]
Cf. Santiago v. Dionisio, 92 Phil. 495 (1953)

^[6]
Cf. Manila Herald Publishing Co. v. Ramos, et al., 888 Phil 94 (1951)

^[7]
See Waite v. Peterson, 8 Phil. 449 (1907); Quesada v. Artacho, 9 Phil. 104 (1907); Uy Piaoco v. Osmeña, 9 Phil.
299 (1907); Osorio & Del Rosario v. Cortes and Manalo,
24 Phil. 653-654 (1912).

^[8]
Contreras, et al. v. Molina et al., 64 Phil. 1 (1937),
Santos, et al, v. Mojica, et al.,
L-19618, February
28, 1964.

^[9]
67 Phil. 319-320 (1939).

^[10]
97 Phil. 200 (1955).

^[11]
No. L-26294, May 31, 1972,
45 SCRA 314-315.