BENVENENCIO VALENCIA, ET AL., PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLANTS, VS. THE CITY OF DUMAGUETE, ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES.

It appears that on June 6, 1959, Benvenencio Valencia and 28 other residents
of different municipalities of Negros Oriental filed an action against the City
of Dumaguete S. L. Teves, Inc., Lorenzo Roberto and Eddie Go You Lee to recover
from them the surcharges they had collected from the customers of four movie
houses operated in Dumaguete City, pursuant to City Ordinance No. 76, Series of
1954, as amended. The complaint alleged, among other things, the following:

“5. That the subjeect matter of this case is one of common or general
interest to about thirty (30) thousand persons residing in the different
municipalities of Negros Oriental and the plaintiffs being so numerous it is
impracticable to bring them all before the Court and for that reason only 29 of
the plaintiffs, (chosen one from every municipality), appear in the title of
this case in representation of all the others.

“6. That S. L. Teves, Inc. is the proprietor and operator of three movie
houses or cinematographs operated in the City of Dumaguete known as “MAIN”,
“PARK”, and “TOWN”.

“7. Defendants Lorenzo Eoberto and Eddie Go You Lee, were the joint managers
and operators of “Gets Theater”, a cinematograph operated in Dumaguete City from
September 30, 1955 to December 31, 1956.

“8. That in 1954 defendant, the City of Dumaguete enacted City Ordinance No.
76, series of 1954, which was amended by Ordinance No. 35, series of 1955, and
required the operators, managers and proprietors of all cinematographs operated
in Dumaguete City to collect from each and every movie-goer a surcharge of P.05
and P.10 in addition to the regular admission fee required from every
person.

“9. That in pursuance of said ordinance, defendant S. L. Teves, Inc., upon
pressure from defendant City of Dumaguete, exacted and illegally collected the
sum of P.05 and P.10 as stated above in addition to the regular admission fee
from each and every moviegoer, from July 1954 to December 1956, and was able to
realize the total sum of not less than P59,433.54 from the three cinematographs
named MAIN, PARK and TOWN; and, in like manner, defendants Lorenzo Roberto and
Eddie Go You Lee collected and realized the sum of P50,000.58 from Gets Theater
from October 1955 to December 31, 1956.

“10. That out of said sum of P59,433.54, collected from MAIN, PARK, and TOWN,
defendant S. L. Teves Inc. turned over by way of deposits to defendant City of
Dumaguete the sum of P47,344.14 on or about the middle of 1958 plus P6,017.60
delivered subsequently also by way of deposit, and retained in her possession
the sum of P6,071.80 in trust for the lawful owneis thereof.

“11. That out of ths sum of P15,000.58 collected from Gets Theater,
defendants Lorenzo Roberto and Eddie Go You Lee, in like manner, turned over to
defendant, City of Dumaguete, the sum of P10,624.08 on or about the middle of
1958, and shortly thereafter delivered also P598.65 corresponding to the
collection made from September 1, 1956 to September 15, 1956, but retained in
their possession the sum of P3,877.90 corresponding to the collection covering
September 16, 1956 to December 31, 1956.

“12. That defendant City of Dumaguete did not have any authority or power to
enact an ordinance imposing a surcharge of P.05 and P.10 per admission ticket in
addition to the regular admission fee, and City Ordinance No. 76-S of 1954 and
Ordinance No. 35-S of 1955 are illegal and null and void from the beginning and
therefore the collection of said surcharge is ultra vires, illegal and null and
void.

“13. That payment of said surcharge was forced upon the moviegoers who had no
other alternative than to pay as required under protest.

“14. That knowing the illegality of said surcharge, and aware of the fraud
committed to the public, defendants herein have stopped their nefarious and
fraudulent exaction after December 31, 1956; but have not refunded the money
collected to the owners thereof.

“15. That defendants have no right to keep or retain, much less use any of
the sums abovementioned and are duty bound to return or refund said sums of
money to the plaintiffs herein without delay, together with interests
thereon.”

On June 16, 1959, the City of Dumaguete filed a motion to compel the
plaintiffs to amend their complaint or to submit a Bill of Particulars
specifying therein with definiteness the following:

“a. The exact sum or sums of money that each and every plaintiff moviegoer is
seeking to recover; the number of times he has attended cinematographic
performance; the date and/or dates of his attendance; and the moviehouse where
he attended on each particular date;

“b. The names of all the plaintiffs who paid the tax under protest, stating
also the dates and the amounts that they paid under protest; and to whom such
protests were made;

“c. The computation whereby the plaintiffs arrived at the amounts of
P59,433.54 and P15,000.58.”

On June 27, 1959, defendant S. L. Teves, Inc. filed its answer to the
complaint denying its liability to the plaintiffs, and incorporating therein, as
an affirmative defense, the motion for a bill of particulars filed by
co-defendant City of Dumaguete. Defendant Eddie Go You Lee, for his part, moved
to dismiss the complaint on the ground that the case is not a proper class
suit.

On July 6, 1959, plaintiffs filed an opposition to the motion for a bill of
particulars, alleging that the case is a class suit; that there were about
30,000 plaintiffs having a common or general interest in its subject matter, and
that it would be impracticable and unnecessary to bring them all before the
Court or to give out in detail all the names and personal circumstances of each
and every individual plaintiff or the exact date or dates of payment and amounts
collected individually from them by the defendants.

On July 14, 1959, the Court issued an order requiring the plaintiffs to
comply with the motion for a Bill of Particulars either by amending their
complaint accordingly, or submitting, within a period of ten days from notice
thereof, a Bill of Particulars regarding the matters set forth in said
motion.

On, July 31, 1959 plaintiffs filed an amended complaint with a motion for its
admission. As in the original complaint, it was alleged therein, inter alia,
that City Ordinance No. 76, Series of 1954, as amended, of the City of
Dumaguete, was ultra vires, illegal and void and that plaintiffs had no
alternative but to pay, as in fact they paid, the illegal surcharge imposed by
said ordinance. New allegations, however, were made to the effect that
defendants had “stopped their illegal and fraudulent collection after December
31, 1956” upon orders from the Secretary of Finance, but that they had failed to
refund the money they had theretofore collected. A copy of the ruling of the
Secretary of Finance was attached to the amended complaint, as Annex C and the
same enjoined the City Treasurer of Dumaguete “to desist from further collecting
the taxes in question”.

Considering the above stated circumstances, it seems clear that the validity
of the city ordinance already referred to was no longer an issue before the
lower court, the amended complaint having rendered the matter purely academic or
moot. The case was one, therefore, exclusively for the recovery of the
surcharges collected by the defendants from the 28 plaintiffs and their alleged
more than 30,000 co-parties.

Section 12, Rule 3 of the Rules of Court—substantially the same as Section
118 of Act 190—provides that when the subjectmatter of an action is of common or
general interest to many persons and these persons are so numerous that it is
impracticable to bring them all before the court, one or more of them may sue
for the benefit of all.

We have held heretofore that in an action where numerous defendants,
individually occupying different portions of a big parcel of land, were sued as
a class represented only by some of them, a class suit would not lie because
each of the defendants had an interest only in the particular portion of the
land he was actually, occupying, which was completely different front the other)
portions individually occupied by the other defendants’ (Berces vs. Villanueva,
25 Phil. 473). Prior to this ruling we had also held that a class suit does not
lie in actions for the recovery of real property where separate portions of the
same parcel are occupied and claimed individually by different parties, to the
exclusion of each other (Rallonza vs. Evangelista, 15 Phil. 531).

The case now before us is analogous to the two mentioned above in the sense
that each one of the herein plaintiffs and each of the more than 30,000 other
parties in interest referred to in the amended complaint, has an interest
exclusively in the amounts allegedly collected from each of them by the
defendants. Under the facts alleged in the amended complaint it is clear that no
one plaintiff has any right to, or any share in the amounts individually claimed
by the others, each of them being entitled, if at all, only to the return of
what he had personally paid.

Moreover, assuming that the case is allowed to proceed as filed, and that
judgment is rendered sentencing the defendants to pay the amounts claimed in the
amended complaint, it is obvious that the plaintiffs—whether individually or as
a group—would not be entitled to appropriate for themselves the amounts so
adjudged. And yet, while the amended complaint avers that numerous other parties
have an interest in the issue, it does not allege and specify the amounts
claimed by, and payable to each of them nor to each of the plaintiffs named in
the pleading.

All the foregoing considerations clearly support the order of the Jpwer court
requiring the plaintiffs to submit a bill of particulars or to amend their
complaint in the sense prayed for in the motion filed by the defendant City of
Dumaguete.

Upon the other hand, pursuant to the provisions of Section 3, Rule 30 of the
Rules of Court, an action may be dismissed when the plaintiff fails to comply
with the Rules of Court or any order of the court. It being obvious in this case
that appellants had failed to comply with the order of the lower court requiring
them to submit a bill of particulars, the order of dismissal appealed from must
be, as it is hereby, upheld. Without pronouncement as to costs.

Bengzon, C. J., Padilla, Bautista Angelo, Labrador, Concepcion, Reyes, J.
B. L., Barrera, Paredes, Regala, and Makalintal, JJ., concur.