GLORIA PAJARES, PETITIONER-APPELLANT, VS. JUDGE ESTRELLA ABAD SANTOS, MUNICIPAL COURT OF MANILA AND UDHARAM BAZAR CO., RESPONDENTS-APPELLEES.

We dismiss as frivolous petitioner-appel­lant’s appeal from the
lower Court’s Order of dismissal of her petition for a writ of certio­rari with
prayer for preliminary injunction against respondent judge’s order denying her
motion for a bill of particulars as the defendant in a simple collection case.

The origin of the case is narrated in the Court of Appeals’
Resolution dated August 16, 1968 certifying the appeal to this Court as
involving purely questions of law:  –

“This is an appeal interposed by petitioner Gloria Pajares from the order dated July 21, 1962 issued by the Court of First Instance of Manila,
dismissing her petition for certiorari with preliminary injunction against
respondent Judge Estrella Abad
Santos of the Municipal Court of Manila
and respondent Udharam Bazar
& Co.

“There is no dispute that on April 25, 1962, the Udharam Bazar & Co. sued Gloria Pajares
before the Municipal Court of Manila for recovery of a certain sum of
money.  The lawsuit was docket­ed in the
inferior court as Civil Case No. 97309 and was eventually assigned to the sala of the res­pondent Judge Abad
Santos.

“In its complaint the Udharam Bazar & Co. averred, among others, as follows:

“2.    That defendant in 1961, ordered from the
plaintiff quantities of ready made goods and delivered to her in good condition
and same were already sold, but did not make the full payment up to the present
time;

“’3.    That defendant is still indebted to the
plaintiff in the sum of P354.85, represent­ing the balance of her account as
the value of the said goods, which is already overdue and payable.’

“Instead of answering the complaint against her, Gloria Pajares, however, moved for a bill of parti­culars praying
the inferior court to require the Udharam Bazar & Co. to itemize the kinds of goods which she
supposedly purchased from the said company, the respect­ive dates they were
taken and by whom they were received as well as their purchase prices, alleging
that without this bill she would not be able to meet the issues raised in the
complaint.

“After due hearing, the inferior court denied the motion of
Gloria Pajares for a bill of particulars.  Her motion for reconsideration having been
denied too by the said court, she then brought the incident on certio­rari to
the Court of First Instance of Manila, alleging in support of her petition that
in denying her motion for a bill of particulars, the respondent judge acted in
grave abuse of discretion.

“But on July 19, 1962, herein respondent Udharam
Bazar & Co. filed a motion to dismiss the
petition for a writ of certiorari, as well as the petition for a writ of
preliminary injunction, for the reasons: 
(1) that the allegations of the complaint filed by the said com­pany in
the inferior court, particularly paragraphs 2 and 3 thereof, are clear,
specific and sufficiently appraise the defendant, now herein petitioner Gloria Pajares, of the nature of the cause of action against her
so as to enable her to prepare for her defenses; and (2) that the things asked
for in the motion for a bill of particulars are evidentiary matters, which are
beyond the pale of such bill.  Convinced
that the said motion of the company is well founded, the lower court
accordingly dismissed the petition on April
21, 1962.

“Her subsequent motion for reconsideration having been
similarly denied by the court below, Gloria Pajares
undertook the present appeal to this Court, contending under her lone
assignment of error to maintain her such appeal that the lower court erred in
dis­missing her petition for certiorari with preliminary injunction, in its order dated July 21, 1962, as
amended by its order dated August 18, 1962.

“The only genuine issues involved in the case at bar are:  (1) whether the allegations of the complaint
sufficiently appraise Gloria Pajares of the nature of
the cause of action against her; and (2) whether the items asked for by the
said Gloria Pajares in her mo­tion for a bill of
particulars constitute evidentiary matters. 
To our mind these are purely legal questions.  A perusal of the brief of the parties has
shown that no genuine factual questions are at all involved in this
appeal.”

It is plain and clear that no error of law, much less any grave
abuse of discretion, was committed by respondent judge in denying appellant’s
motion for a bill of particulars in the collect­ion case instituted in the
Municipal Court of Manila by private respondent-appellee
for the recovery of her indebtedness of P354.85 representing the overdue
balance of her account for ready-made goods ordered by and delivered to her in
1961.  Appellee’s
complaint precisely and concisely informed appel­lant of the ultimate or
essential facts constituting the cause of action against her, in accordance
with the requirements of the Rules of Court.^[1]

It was therefore improper for appellant, through her coun­sel, to
insist on her motion that appellee as plaintiff
“submit a bill of particulars, specifying therein in detail the goods
represent­ed by the alleged amount of P354.85, giving the dates and invoice
numbers on which they were delivered to the defendant, the amount due on each
such invoice and by whom they were received.” These particulars sought all
concerned evidentiary matters and do not come within the scope of Rule 12,
section 1 of the Rules of Court which permits a party “to move for a
definite statement or for a bill of particulars of any matter which is not
averred with suffi­cient definiteness or particularly to enable him to prepare
his responsive pleading or to prepare for trial.”

Since appellant admittedly was engaged in the business of buying and selling
merchandise at her stall at the Sta. Mesa Mar­ket, Quezon
City, and appellee was one of her creditors from whom
she used to buy on credit ready-made goods for resale, appellant had no need of
the evidentiary particulars sought by her to enable her to prepare her answer
to the complaint or to prepare for trial. 
These particulars were just as much within her knowledge as appellee’s.  She
could not logically pretend ignorance as to the same, for all she had to do was
to check and verify her own records of her outstanding account with appellee and state in her answer whether from her records
the outstanding balance of her indebted­ness was in the sum of P354.85, as
claimed by appellee, or in a lesser amount.

The record shows, furthermore, that a month before appellee filed its collection case, it had written
appellant a demand-letter for the payment of her outstanding account in the
said sum of P354.85 within one week. 
Appellant, through her counsel, wrote appellee
under date of March 23, 1962, acknowledging her said indebtedness but stating
that “Due to losses she has sustained in the operation of her stall, she
would not be able to meet your request for payment of the full amount of
P354.85 at once.  I would therefore
request you to be kind enough to allow her to continue paying you P10.00 every 15th and end of the month as
heretofore.”

No error was
therefore committed by the lower court in sum­marily dismissing appellant’s
petition for certiorari against res­pondent judge’s order denying her motion
for a bill of particulars, as pretended by appellant in her lone assignment of
error: Well may we apply to this appeal, the words of Mr. Justice J. B. L.
Reyes in an analogous case,^[2]
that “the circumstances surrounding this litigation definitely prove that
appeal is frivolous and a plain trick to delay payment and prolong litigation
unnecessarily.  Such attitude deserves
condemnation, wasting as it does, the time that the courts could well devote to
meritorious cases.”

Here, this simple collection case has needlessly clogged the
court dockets for over seven years.  Had
appellant been but prudently advised by her counsel to confess judgment and ask
from her creditor the reasonable time she needed to discharge her lawful
indebtedness, the expenses of litigation that she has incurred by way of filing
fees in the Court of First Instance, premiums for her appeal bond, appellate
court docket fees, printing of her appel­lant’s brief, and attorney’s fees
would have been much more than sufficient to pay off her just debt to appellee.  Yet, here
she still remains saddled with the same debt, burdened by accumulated
interests, after having spent uselessly much more than the amount in litigation
in this worthless cause.

As we recently said in another case,^[3]
the cooperation of litigants and their attorneys is needed so that needless
clogging of the court dockets with unmeritorious cases may be avoided.  There must be more faithful adherence to Rule
7, section 5 of the Rules of Court which provides that “the signature of
an attorney constitutes a certificate by him that he has read the pleading and
that to the best of his knowledge, information and belief, there is good ground to support it; and that
it is not interposed for delay”
and expressly admonishes that “for a willful violation of this rule
an attorney may be subjected to disciplinary action.”

WHEREFORE, the order appealed from is affirmed, and
petitioner-appellant’s counsel shall pay treble costs in all instances.  This decision shall be noted in the personal
record of the attorney for petitioner-appellant in this Court for future
reference.

SO ORDERED.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Sanchez, Ruiz Castro, Fernando, and Barredo, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Rule 6, section 3, formerly Rule 6, section 1.

^[2]
Uypuanco vs. Equitable Banking Corporation, 27
SCRA 1272 (April 30, 1969).

^[3]
J.P. Juan & Sons, Inc. vs. Lianga
Industries, Inc. 28 SCRA 807 (July 28, 1969).