G.R. No. L-29204. January 30, 1971
ALEGAR CORPORATION, PETITIONER, VS. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS, VENANCIO JUANERIO AND SEVERA RONTOS, RESPONDENTS.
TEEHANKEE, J.:
Special civil action of certiorari and prohibition
against a resolution of the Court of Appeals reinstating a dismissed appeal, as
having been issued in excess of jurisdiction and with grave abuse of
discretion.
Private respondents Venancio Juanerio and Severa Rontos, had through their counsel, Atty. Pablito M. Rojas, filed on April 7, 1967, their notice of appeal from an order of dismissal,
for being res judicata,
of the complaint filed by them as plaintiffs against respondent as defendant
issued by the Manila court of first instance.[1]
The Manila court’s dismissal order dated November 26, 1966 found that on December
3, 1964, judgment had been rendered also by the Manila court of first instance
in a previous case (Civil Case No. 39380) between the same parties and
involving ownership of the same land (covered by petitioner’s T. C. T. No.
60920-Manila)”declaring (plaintiff) Alegar
Corporation the owner and entitled to the possession of the land occupied by
the defendants (spouses). From this
decision, defendants appealed to the Court of Appeals but the same was
dismissed on August 20, 1965.”
It therefore declared that the second case filed by respondents as plaintiffs
against petitioner as defendant for a declaration of ownership over the same
land “is now barred by prior judgment which has become final and executory,
and, therefore, res judicata”
and ordered the dismissal thereof.[2]
After the elevation of respondents’ appeal from the dismissal
order to the appellate court, they failed to file within the reglementary sixty-day period after notice, which expired
on November 15, 1967,
their printed record on appeal.[3]
In its resolution of December 20,
1966, received by respondents’ counsel on January 3, 1968, the appellate court motu proprio
accordingly dismissed the appeal.
On January 22, 1968, respondents’ counsel filed a so-called urgent
motion for reconsideration of the appellate court’s dismissal of the appeal,
alleging that lie had written on November 2, 1967, prior to the expiration of
the sixty-day period a letter to respondents addressed to Venancio
Juanerio informing them of the deadline and requesting
them to provide the amount of P150.00 to cover the printing expenses of the
record on appeal, but that the letter “was never received by him nor his
wife, the other appellant, because in the meanwhile Mr. Venancio
Juanerio had died and the post office employee
charged with the custody of the letter would not give it to Mrs. Juanerio.
Consequently, the letter was returned unclaimed.” Counsel submitted
respondent Severa Juanerio’s
affidavit of January 22, 1968, wherein she stated that she received in the first
week of November, 1967 a registry notice of counsel’s letter addressed to her
late husband but tried to get the “registered letter” three
times from the Manila post-office to no avail, and that shortly after January
5, 1968 she was surprised to receive a letter from her counsel informing her of
the dismissal of their appeal.[4]
The appellate court in its resolution of February 8, 1968, received by respondents’ counsel
on February 23, 1968,
upheld petitioner’s opposition and denied respondents’ motion to reinstate the
dismissed appeal, “it appearing that the failure to file the printed
record on appeal was apparently due to counsel’s negligence.
“
Under date of March 6, 1968, respondents’ counsel on behalf of
respondents filed a motion for reconsideration of the appelllate
court’s denial of his motion to reinstate the appeal “on the ground that
plaintiff-appellant, Venancio Juanerio,
having died, the undersigned counsel had ceased to represent him in the case
as of the time he died” and that “plaintiff-appellant, Venancio Juanerio, died around
the latter part of September, 1967,”[5]
prior to the deadline for filing the printed record on appeal on November 15,
1967, citing the provisions of Rule 3, section 17 on substitution of deceased
parties.
In its opposition, petitioner expressly charged that these
allegations of respondents’ counsel were “misleading and fabrications”
and submitted to the appellate court, copy of said counsel’s pleading entitled
“Manifestation and Motion” dated January 26, 1967 filed in the case
with the lower court, wherein counsel expressly informed said court that “on
January 3, 1967, Venancio Juanerio,
one of the plaintiffs . . . died at the Veterans Memorial Hospital; he is
survived by his wife, Severa Rontos
Juanerio who is also a party-plaintiff in this case,
and a son, Leonardo,” and asked the lower court for a ten-day extension to
file a motion for reconsideration of the lower court’s order of dismissal of
the case. Petitioner further stated that
such fact of death of Venancio as early as January 3, 1967 indicated
the lack of merit and factual basis of respondents’ first motion, for counsel
would not be addressing a letter to Venancio
“knowing him to be dead already. “[6]
The appellate court nevertheless summarily ordered the reinstatement
of the appeal in its resolution of March
15, 1968. On petitioner’s
motion for reconsideration of April 4,
1968, urging that it had “through misrepresentations and fabrications .. (been) misled into
reconsidering the dismissal of the appeal and reinstating the same”, it
issued its resolution of April 17,
1968, requiring the appellants to furnish this court within 10 days
from notice hereof and in the meanwhile the motion for reconsideration is held
in abeyance until the submission of the required death certificate.”
Respondents’ counsel submitted on May 10, 1968, the required death
certificate which in fact showed that Venancio had
actually died on January 3, 1967, as well as his opposition to the
petitioner’s motion for reconsideration wherein he disclaimed any
misrepresentation and fabrication” and attributed the discrepancy in his
representations to “human limitations” as “due to pressure and
volume of work, one is left with no sufficient time to scrutinize voluminous
records”, and asserted that “the fact of death, and not the date
thereof, is the principal issue involved in the reinstatement of the
appeal” since such death terminated his authority to represent the
deceased.
The appellate court in its resolution of June 5, 1968 denied petitioner’s motion for
reconsideration. Hence,
this petition.
The Court finds that the above facts fully justify petitioner’s
contention that respondents’ counsel committed gross misrepresentations in
seeking the reinstatement of their appeal.
In their first motion for reconsideration of January 22, 1968, counsel
and respondent Severa Rontos,
contrary to the actual fact of Venancio’s death since
the year before on January 3, 1967 sought to have the appellate court
understand that Venancio had but recently died
“in the meanwhile” that counsel had written his alleged letter of
November 2, 1967 addressed to the deceased Venancio. In their second motion for reconsideration of
March 6, 1968, respondents’
counsel went further and flatly misstated to the appellate court that Venancio “died around the latter part of September,
1967”. The other ground for setting
aside the dismissal order alleged by respondents’ counsel that Venancio’s death terminated his authority to represent the
deceased as counsel is likewise shown by the record itself to be untenable,
since soon after the death of Venancio on January 3,
1967, counsel continued to be authorized to represent the deceased – more
accurately, the deceased’s heirs[7] –
as well as the co-plaintiff spouse, as counsel did in fact represent them, both
in the case in the lower court as well as in all the proceedings in the
appeal. Counsel’s failure to ask for the
formal substitution of the heirs of the deceased in his place, and counsel’s
continuing the case in the name of the deceased as party plaintiff does not
serve as a valid ground for the setting aside of the dismissal order, issued by
the appellate court on the basis of counsel’s negligence.
Since both grounds on which the appellate court could have
conceivably based its order reinstating the appeal are shown by the record to
be palpably untrue, the Court is constrained to order the setting aside of such
reinstatement order as having been issued with grave abuse of discretion
amounting to excess of jurisdiction. The
Court, in reaching this conclusion, examined the merits of respondents’ appeal
on the basis of the pleadings of the parties in the lower court and duly noted
that no tenable ground was submitted by respondents to show error in the lower
court’s ruling that their action is barred by res
judicata.
ACCORDINGLY, the writ of certiorari prayed for is
granted. The appellate court’s
resolution dated March 15, 1968
reinstating the appeal is set aside and the writ of preliminary injunction
issued by the Court on August 31, 1968
is made permanent. No pronouncement as
to costs, none having been prayed for in the petition.
Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon,
Makalintal, Zaldivar, Castro, Fernando, Barredo, Villamor, and Makasiar, JJ., concur.
[1]
The case was docketed as Civil Case No. 64836, entitled “Venancio Juanerio and his wife Severa Rontos, plaintiffs, vs.
Alegar Corporation, defendant.
“
[2] Rollo, pp. 12-14.
[3]
Rule 46, section 5 and Rule 50, section 1.
[4] Rollo, pp. 17-21; emphasis furnished.
[5] Rollo, p. 26, emphasis furnished.
[6] Rollo, p.
32, idem.
[7]
See Rule 3, section 17.