BENGUET ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, INC. COMPLAINANT, VS. ATTY. ERNESTO B. FLORES, RESPONDENT.

Benguet Electric Cooperative versus Flores

The Case

This is an administrative complaint for disbarment or suspension filed by the Benguet Electric Cooperative against its former opposing counsel, Atty. Ernesto Flores. The Cooperative charged him with forum shopping, grave misconduct, unduly delaying the administration of justice, and violating his oath of office. The case matters because it is a clean teaching vehicle on two professional duties every lawyer owes the courts: the duty not to shop for a friendly forum, and the duty of candor, meaning a lawyer must never lie to the Court, even to save himself.

Procedural History

The complaint was filed directly with the Supreme Court, an original administrative action against a member of the bar. The Court referred the case to the Integrated Bar of the Philippines for investigation, report, and recommendation. The Investigating Commissioner found the respondent guilty of falsehood and of failing to comply with the circular on forum shopping, and the Board of Governors adopted that recommendation, suspending him for six months. The case then returned to the Supreme Court, which affirmed the finding of guilt but increased the penalty.

Facts

The Cooperative had won a final judgment in a labor case. To collect what it had paid to an employee during the pendency of that case, it obtained a writ of execution against the members of its former Board of Directors. The respondent, as new counsel for those losing board members, first filed a motion for clarification before the Supreme Court, which was noted without action. He then filed an injunction suit before one branch of the Regional Trial Court of Baguio City to stop the levy on his clients' properties. That suit was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

Undeterred, the respondent filed two separate but identical complaints before another branch of the Regional Trial Court in La Trinidad, Benguet, asking that the same properties be judicially declared a family home and thus exempt from levy and execution. Each complaint carried an urgent motion for a temporary restraining order. The real objective, the Court found, was not a family home declaration but to restrain or delay the enforcement of the writ of execution.

Worse, in his comment before the Supreme Court in this administrative case, the respondent stated that he had never perfected an appeal from the dismissal of his injunction suit. That was false. The records showed he did appeal, the appeal was perfected, the records were transmitted to the Court of Appeals, and that court later dismissed the appeal. He had withdrawn the appeal, but he had plainly filed and perfected one.

Issues

• Whether or not the respondent is guilty of forum shopping for filing multiple actions seeking the same relief of restraining the execution of a final judgment.
• Whether or not the respondent is guilty of falsehood for stating before the Supreme Court that he had not perfected an appeal from the dismissal of his injunction suit.
• Whether or not the penalty recommended by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines should be increased.

Applicable Provisions

Section 1, paragraph (e) of Rule 16 of the 1964 Rules of Court provides:

That there is another action pending between the same parties for the same cause.

This ground for dismissal embodies the prohibition against splitting a single cause of action and against maintaining parallel suits.

Section 4 of Rule 2 of the 1964 Rules of Court provides:

If two or more complaints are brought for different parts of a single cause of action, the filing of the first may be pleaded in abatement of the other or others, in accordance with section 1 (e) of Rule 16, and a judgment upon the merits in any one is available as a bar in the others.

This provision confirms that a party may not divide one cause of action into several complaints filed in different courts.

The third paragraph of Supreme Court Circular No. 28-91 provides:

Any willful and deliberate forum shopping by any party and his lawyer with the filing of multiple petitions and complaints to ensure favorable action shall constitute direct contempt of court.

This circular is the source of the disciplinary consequence for forum shopping, including action against the offending lawyer.

Section 2 of Rule 50 of the Rules of Court provides:

Fifteen (15) days after the dismissal of an appeal, the clerk shall return to the court below the record on appeal with a certificate under the seal of the court showing that the appeal has been dismissed. Upon the receipt of such certificate in the lower court the case shall stand there as though no appeal had ever been taken, and the judgment of the said court may be enforced with the additional costs allowed by the appellate court upon dismissing the appeal.

The respondent invoked this provision to argue that a withdrawn appeal means no appeal was taken, an argument the Court rejected as missing the point.

Section 4 of Rule 50 of the Rules of Court provides:

An appeal may be withdrawn as of right at any time before the filing of appellee's brief. The withdrawal of an appeal shall have the same effect as that of a dismissal in accordance with section 2 of this rule.

This provision governs the effect of withdrawal, but it does not erase the historical fact that an appeal was in fact filed and perfected.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held the respondent guilty of forum shopping. It first corrected the Integrated Bar's reasoning: the failure to attach a certificate of non-forum shopping to the injunction complaint was not itself a violation of Circular No. 28-91, because that circular then applied only to petitions filed before the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, and the later administrative circular extending the requirement to all initiatory pleadings took effect only on April 1, 1994, after the complaints were filed in March and May 1993. Nevertheless, the Court held that the rule against forum shopping had long been established independently of the circulars. Forum shopping exists when, after an adverse opinion in one forum, a party seeks a favorable opinion in another, or when he institutes two or more actions grounded on the same cause, gambling that one court will rule in his favor. The respondent's family home suits were frivolous, because under the Family Code a family home is deemed constituted by operation of law from the time it is occupied as a residence, with no need for judicial declaration. Their real purpose was to restrain the execution already refused by another branch, a clear case of shopping for a friendly forum.

On the second issue, the Court held the respondent guilty of falsehood. His claim that no appeal was perfected was belied by the transmission of the records to the Court of Appeals and by that court's resolution dismissing the appeal. Withdrawal of the appeal did not change the fact that an appeal had been filed and perfected. The falsehood was aggravated because it was made before the Supreme Court itself in an attempt to cover up the forum shopping.

On the third issue, the Court increased the penalty. Following its earlier rulings where a one-year suspension was imposed for frustrating a final judgment and for forum shopping, it suspended the respondent for one year for forum shopping and another year for falsehood.

Doctrine

Forum shopping exists when, as a result of an adverse opinion in one forum, a party seeks a favorable opinion in another, or when he institutes two or more actions grounded on the same cause, gambling on a favorable disposition. The test is the vexation caused to the courts and to litigants by a party who asks different courts to rule on the same or related causes.

A lawyer owes candor, fairness, and good faith to the courts. He shall do no falsehood, nor consent to its doing, and must not mislead the courts by any artifice. A false statement made in pleadings before the Court, even to exculpate oneself, is a serious offense.

A lawyer has the duty to assist in the speedy and efficient administration of justice and must not unduly delay a case by impeding the execution of a judgment or by misusing court processes.

Disposition

The Court found the respondent guilty of forum shopping and falsehood and suspended him from the practice of law for a total of two years, with a warning that a repetition will be dealt with more severely.

Remember This

The single line to memorize: a lawyer must be a disciple of truth, and forum shopping is a gamble on a friendly forum that the Court will not tolerate. Examiners use this case to test the elements of forum shopping, the duty of candor under the Code of Professional Responsibility, and the rule that a family home is constituted by operation of law without judicial declaration.