BRIGIDO TOQUIB, COMPLAINANT, VS. ATTY. VALERIANO TOMOL, JR., RESPONDENT.

Toquib versus Tomol

The Case

This is an administrative case for disbarment or suspension brought by Brigido Toquib against Attorney Valeriano Tomol, Junior, the lawyer who had been retained by the complainant's aged father in a civil case for recovery of possession of land. The complainant charges that the respondent abandoned the defense of his client through gross negligence and misrepresentation, allowing judgment to be rendered against the old man and the period to appeal to lapse. The case matters because it fixes the measure of a lawyer's duty of devotion to the client's cause, and because it shows that neglect of a client's interests, aggravated by indifference to the misfortune that neglect has caused, is a ground for suspension from the practice of law.

Procedural History

The administrative complaint was filed with the Supreme Court, which gave it due course and required the respondent to answer within ten days from notice. The respondent received that resolution but did not file an answer; he filed instead a petition asking that the complainant be ordered to furnish him copies of certain documents, and even after that request was granted he still did not answer. The matter was investigated, and the Solicitor General filed a report recommending that the respondent be suspended from the practice of law for six months. With the Solicitor General's complaint and the answer thereto on file, together with the memoranda of the parties, the case came before the Supreme Court for decision. This is therefore an original administrative proceeding in the Supreme Court itself, not an appeal from any lower court.

Facts

The respondent was counsel for the complainant's father, Hermogenes Toquib, an octogenarian, who was the defendant in a civil case for recovery of possession of a parcel of land before the Court of First Instance of Southern Leyte. After the plaintiffs closed their evidence, the respondent moved that his client's deposition be taken because of his advanced age and his inability to attend the hearing at Maasin. The court granted the motion and set the taking of the deposition before the justice of the peace of Hinunangan. On the scheduled date, December 22, 1960, the defendant did not appear; when the would-be deponent was still unavailable at three o'clock in the afternoon, the respondent moved for postponement, the motion was denied, and the judge informed the parties that he would report the matter to the Court of First Instance, which he did.

On May 19, 1961, the Court of First Instance issued an order considering the case submitted for decision because of the defendant's failure to attend the scheduled deposition. On May 25, 1961, it rendered judgment for the plaintiffs, declaring them the true and real owners of the property, ordering the defendant to vacate it, and requiring him to pay damages for its occupation. Between June and August of 1961 the complainant repeatedly went to the respondent to ask about the status of the case and when his father's turn to present evidence would come, and the respondent consistently advised him to wait for the notice of hearing. Sometime in June 1962 a writ of execution was served on the father, and when the complainant asked why, since his father had not even presented his evidence, the respondent told him to advise his father to accept the writ.

The complainant then engaged another lawyer, who filed a notice of appeal, and upon checking the record the complainant found that the respondent had received a copy of the decision as early as June 7, 1961, through Manuel Labrador, whom he had authorized to receive mail matters in his behalf. The respondent gave the complainant a letter for delivery to the new counsel, dated July 1, 1962, in which he stated that he had not received a copy of the decision but suggested that the new lawyer study the possibility of filing an action for annulment of the decision, since the reglementary period for filing a motion to vacate the judgment in the same proceedings had already lapsed.

Issues

• Whether or not the respondent lived up to his lawyer's oath to conduct himself as a lawyer to the best of his knowledge and discretion, when he failed to make representations to the court after his client's non-appearance at the scheduled deposition and allowed the case to be submitted for decision without the client's evidence.
• Whether or not the respondent was bound by the service of the copy of the adverse decision upon Manuel Labrador, and whether his failure to notify his client, to appeal, or to seek relief from the judgment constitutes gross negligence warranting disciplinary action.

Applicable Provisions

Section 3 of Rule 138 of the Rules of Court, the lawyer's oath, provides:

I do solemnly swear that I will maintain allegiance to the Republic of the Philippines, I will support the Constitution and obey the laws as well as the legal orders of the duly constituted authorities therein; I will do no falsehood, nor consent to the doing of any in court; I will not wittingly or willingly promote or sue any groundless, false or unlawful suit, or give aid nor consent to the same; I will delay no man for money or malice, and will conduct myself as a lawyer according to the best of my knowledge and discretion, with all good fidelity as well to the courts as to my clients; and I impose upon myself this voluntary obligation without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. So help me God.

The respondent's conduct is measured against this oath, and the Court framed the very problem of the case as whether he had lived up to it.

Canon 15 of the Canons of Professional Ethics provides:

The lawyer owes entire devotion to the interest of the client, warm zeal in the maintenance and defense of his rights and the exertion of his utmost learning and ability, to the end that nothing be taken or be withheld from him, save by the rules of law, legally applied.

This canon supplies the standard of devotion that the respondent failed to meet.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the respondent failed in his duty. The failure of the deposition on December 22, 1960 should have brought home to him the precarious situation of his client, since he knew that the only evidence on record was that presented by the plaintiffs. As the lawyer who controlled matters of legal procedure for his client, it was his duty to make representations to the court to withhold action on the case and to ask for another date for the taking of the deposition. He did nothing between December 22, 1960 and May 19, 1961, and in the ordinary course of business he must have received a copy of the order submitting the case for decision, and again he did nothing. His excuse that he had not yet conferred and agreed with the complainant on the date of his father's availability was poor, for he should have known that the case could not remain in the calendar indefinitely and that the judge could declare it submitted for decision for lack of proper representations on his part. The Court adopted the Solicitor General's observation that the respondent's inaction evinced neglect on his part to protect the interest of his client.

On the second issue, the Court held that the respondent was bound by the service of the decision through Manuel Labrador. The respondent, then mayor of Silago, tried to shake off the effect of that service by saying that Labrador had no authority to receive registered mail for him, but the Court found this to be wrong. Labrador, an employee of the Silago post office, testified that there was an arrangement between him and the respondent that he would give to the respondent's secretary all mail matters addressed to the respondent, that he received in the respondent's behalf the mail covering the decision and delivered it to the secretary, and that he had delivered mail for the respondent in identical manner countless times. The respondent himself corroborated Labrador when he declared that whatever mails were addressed to him were to be delivered to his secretary by Labrador. Yet the respondent took no steps to protect his client's interests in the face of the adverse decision, although he could very well have done so: he stayed at Silago, only seventeen kilometers from Hinunangan, the residence of the complainant and his father; he did not even notify his client of the decision; he allowed the statutory period for appeal to lapse; and he did not procure relief from the judgment. The Court stressed that this was not a case of simple laxity nor of mere failure to serve a client's interests, but of the attorney's insensibility to the misfortune of his client brought about by an adverse decision occasioned by the attorney's own gross negligence, an indifference notches below the standard required of his office. Citing Canon 15, the Court concluded that he failed in his devotion to the interest of his client, and that his conduct, which in the language of the Court in an earlier case should be up to the level of excellence, was on the contrary even reprehensible.

Doctrine

A lawyer owes his client entire devotion to the client's interest, warm zeal in the maintenance and defense of the client's rights, and the exertion of his utmost learning and ability, as Canon 15 of the Canons of Professional Ethics commands, and he must conduct himself as a lawyer according to the best of his knowledge and discretion, as his oath under Section 3 of Rule 138 binds him. A lawyer who controls the procedure for his client must actively protect the client's cause: after the client fails to appear at a scheduled deposition, it is the lawyer's duty to make representations to the court to withhold action and to ask for another date, and his failure to do so, allowing the case to be submitted for decision without the client's evidence, is neglect of duty. Service of a copy of the decision upon a person with whom the lawyer has an arrangement to receive his mail, and who delivers it to the lawyer's secretary, binds the lawyer, and he cannot escape its effects by denying that person's authority. Failure to notify the client of an adverse decision, to appeal within the statutory period, or to seek relief from the judgment is gross negligence, and where it is attended by insensibility to the misfortune of the client brought about by the lawyer's own neglect, it is a serious violation of the lawyer's oath and Canon 15 warranting suspension from the practice of law.

Disposition

The Court suspended Attorney Valeriano Tomol, Junior, from the practice of law for one year from the date the judgment becomes final, ordered the decision noted in his record as a member of the Bar, and imposed costs against him.

Remember This

The one line to memorize is that the lawyer's insensibility to the misfortune of his client brought about by an adverse decision occasioned by the lawyer's own gross negligence is notches below the standard required of his office. Examiners use this case in legal ethics on the lawyer's duty of devotion under Canon 15 and the lawyer's oath, and on gross negligence and abandonment of a client's cause as grounds for suspension.