ANATALIA MENDOZA, ETC., PETITIONER, VS. SPECIAL DIVISION OF THE COURT OF APPEALS, RUFINA SANTIAGO, ET AL., RESPONDENTS.

The petitioner, Anatalia Mendoza, instituted an action in the
Court of First Instance of Manila to obtain a judicial declaration that she is
entitled to stall No. 571 of the Sampaloc public market, and to enjoin the
respondents, Rufina Santiago and officials of the City of Manila in charge of
the administration of the city markets, from ejecting the petitioner from said
stall. In her complaint, the petitioner alleged that since July, 1942, she has
been occupying stalls in said market after proper award by the proper
authorities. In her answer, respondent Rufina Santiago alleged that she had been
the lawful and physical possessor as lessee of stalls Nos. 570 and 571 of the
Sampaloc public market until July, 1946, when the petitioner, through force,
threat and intimidation, ousted her. The respondents, Mayor of Manila, City
Treasurer of Manila, Market Administrator of Manila, and Market Master of
Sampaloc public market, in their answer alleged that respondent Rulina Santiago
had been the actual occupant of stalls Nos. 570 and 571 since the liberation in
February, 1945, up to July, 1946, when she was, under threat and intimidation,
ousted by the petitioner and her husband; that the petitioner had never applied
for stalls Nos. 570 and 571 in accordance with market rules and regulations; and
that the award made to the petitioner of stall No. 570 by the City Mayor was
secured through fraud and misrepresentation. Respondent Rufina Santiago and
respondent officials of the City of Manila both prayed in their answers that the
complaint be dismissed. In addition, however, respondent Rufina Santiago prayed
in her complaint that the petitioner be sentenced to pay P600 as losses and
damages suffered by her as a result of the unlawful usurpation by the petitioner
of stalls Nos. 570 and 571. The petitioner filed a reply to respondents answers,
controverting respondents’ allegations.

After trial, the Court of First Instance of Manila rendered a
decision the dispositive parts of which read as follows:

“After a careful consideration of the evidence of record, the
Court finds that a great preponderance of evidence thereof is in favor of the
contentions of the respondents and against those of the petitioner. The
respondent City Officials, particularly those of the Market Administration, have
carefully investigated the conflicting claims of the petitioner and the
respondent Rufina Santiago and have found that the contentions of the latter are
true. The Court sees nothing in the record which shows or tends to show that the
respondent officials have acted in bad faith or with grave abuse of authority in
upholding the rights of respondent Rufina Santiago to said stalls and rejecting
the claim thereto by the petitioner Anatalia Mendoza. For this reason, the Court
has no other alternative but to dismiss, as it hereby does, this complaint and
declare the respondent City officials have acted legally in adjudicating the
said stalls to the respondent Rufina Santiago and consequently ordering the
petitioner to vacate, the same. Once this decision! becomes final, it is the
order of the Court that the petitioner vacates immediately stalls 570-571 of the
Sampaloc market and turn same over to the lawful adjudicatee thereof, the
respondent Rufina Santiago. The writ of preliminary injunction heretofore,
issued in this case against the respondents is hereby declared null and of no
effect.

“With respect to the claims of the petitioner and the
respondent Rufina Santiago for alleged damages, the Court dismisses the same for
lack of merit.”

Upon appeal hy the petitioner to the Court of Appeals, the
latter court affirmed the decision of the Court of First Instance of Manila. The
case is now before us upon appeal by certiorari interposed by the petitioner
from the. decision of the Court of Appeals.

The facts found by the Court of First Instance of Manila, on
which it based its decision in favor of respondent Rufina Santiago, and which
the Court of Appeals confirmed in toto, are as follows:

“From the whole of the evidence, the Court finds that the great
preponderance thereof establishes the following facts: That Rufina Santiago, for
17 years to the present, has been a fishvendor in the public market of Sampaloc,
Manila; that before and during the last world war and shortly after the
liberation, she was occupying stalls 570-571 in said market, paying the
corresponding municipal licenses therefor; that, if petitioner and her husband
Pedro Bautista had occupied now and then the said stalls, it was because during
the Japanese occupation respondent Rufina Santiago tolerated the said spouses to
occupy said stalls, whenever she had no fish to sell; that the petitioner never
had, at any time a fixed stall in said market, because what she used to do was
to occupy any vacant stall in the said market when the regular holder thereof
was absent or had no goods to sell, as was the case whea on one occasion the
petitioner and her husband occupied stalls 530-531 for sometime but when the
regular stall holder of same named Lucia Santiago of Malabon, Rizal, appeared in
August, 1945, to claim for said stalls, the petitioner had to vacate, as in fact
vacated the same in favor of said Lucia Santiago; that lastly, the petitioner
and her husband occupied stalls 570 with the consent and permission of the
respondent Rufina Santiago because, as stated above, the latter sometimes did
not have sufficient goods to sell; that later, however, the said petitioner and
her husband started using said stall 570 without any permission from Rufina
Santiago, which fact caused the latter to complain to the authorities connected
with the City Market Administration; that by reason of said complaint of
respondent Itufina Santiago, the Market Administration made a thorough
investigation of the complaint sometime in June, 1946 and the said investigation
resulted in the finding that the respondent Rufina Santiago is the one entitled
to the possession and occupancy not only of stall 570, but also of stall 671. It
was for this reason that respondent City Officials ordered the petitioner
Anatalia Mendoza to vacate the said stalls within five days.

“The alleged possession by the petitioner of stalls 570-571
since July 4, 1942 has not been established by any competent evidence. In her
affidavit Exhibit ‘9’, dated August 29, 1946, petitioner states that she has no
document or market ticket issued to stall holders to prove the fact that she
has been in possession of said stalls since March, 1945, because, when her house
was burned on May 3, 1947, all her documents, papers, clothings and furniture
were burned and that all the papers she was presenting as exhibits in Court were
issued to her after the said burning of her house. Yet, petitioner presented as
part of her evidence, Exhibits ‘E’, E-r, ‘E-2’, ‘E-3’ which are market tickets
issued by the Sampaloc Market in heir name for the years 1945 and 1946. The said
exhibits belie completely her contention that wnen her house was burned on May
3, 1947 all the documents and papers relative to her occupancy of the stalls in
question issued to her prior to the latter date were burned and that all that
she was able to save were her nine children. Likewise, the petitioner’s
contention that the award made in her favor by the Mayor of the City of Manila
on July 10, 1946 with respect to stall 571 was never cancelled is completely
belied by Exhibit 8, which is a letter of the City Mayor dated October 24, 1946,
addressed to the City Health Officer expressly stating that the adjudication of
stalls Nos. 570-571 of the Sampaloc market in favor of the petitioner is
repealed and that said stalls are thereby adjudicated in favor of Mrs. Rufina
Santiago.”

These findings of facts are of course conclusive upon this
Court. However, it is insisted for the petitioner that, as the prayer in her
complaint filed in the Court of First Instance of Manila was limited to stall
No. 571, both the Court of First Instance of Manila and the Court of Appeals
erred in ordering the petitioner to vacate stalls Nos. 570 and 571. In reply to
this contention, it may be pointed out that in-the answers both of respondent
Rufina Santiago and respondent city officials, the right of the petitioner to
occupy stalls Nos. 570 and 571, is directly assailed, while the right of
respondent Rufina Santiago thereto is insisted upon. Besides, in her reply to
respondents answers, the petitioner controverts the right of respondent Rufina
Santiago to the two stalls and insists upon her claim to stall No. 570. The
result is that the two stalls may be said to have been put squarely in issue by
the pleadings. Moreover, as stated in the decision of the Court of First
Instance of Manila, “the evidence adduced by the parties at the trial had also
put in issue the conflicting claims of the petitioner and the respondents Rufina
Santiago to both stalls 570 and 571.” When issues not raised by the pleadings
are tried by express or implied consent of the parties, they shall be treated in
all respects, as if they had been raised in the pleadings. (Section 4, Rule 17,
Rules of Court.)

Wherefore, the decision of the Court of Appeals is hereby
affirmed, and it is so ordered with costs against the petitioner.

Pablo, Bengzon, Padilla, Tuason, Montemayor, Bautista Angelo,
and Labrador, JJ., concur.