RAMON AUGUSTO, ET AL., PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLANTS, VS. ARCADIO ABING, ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES.

On 5 June 1958 in the Court of First Instance of Cebu nine residents
of the barrio of Mactan, municipality of Opon, province of Cebu,
namely, Ramon Augusto, Maria Aying, Silvestra Bancale, Clemencia Igot,
Silverio Igot, Filomena Malingen, Maximo Silawan, Maximo Ygoy and
Demetrio Ygoy, brought an action against the members of the Barrio
Council of Mactan alleging that in a resolution adopted sometime before
July 1957, the members of the Barrio Council of Mactan asked the
Municipal Council of Opon, the Provincial Board of Cebu and the
Presidential Assistance for Community Development that a road be
constructed in the barrio of Mactan; that in said resolution the Barrio
Council maliciously pretended that the plaintiffs had agreed to grant a
right of way on their lands where the proposed road was to pass without
cost to donee for the land to be taken and improvements therein to be
removed or destroyed as a result of the construction and opening of the
road, or that they waived any right to claim property and personal
damages that the construction of the road was to cause; that thereafter
without any expropriation proceedings or judicial order workers and
bulldozers entered upon their lands and began building the road therein
destroying in the process corn, banana, cassava, coconut and bamboo
plants existing in their lands, each of the plaintiffs suffering actual
damage, as follows: Ramon Augusto, P150, Maria Aying, P120; Silvestra
Bancale, P415; ClemenciaYgot, P175; Silverio Ygot, P392; Filomena
Malingen, P142; Maximo Silawan, P122; and brothers Maximo and Demetrio
Ygoy, P350; that the plaintiffs were deprived of property without due
process of law; that as a result thereof plaintiffs suffered moral
damage (mental anguish and wounded feeling) in the sum of P1,000 each,
or a total of P9,000; and that they had to engage the services of a
lawyer and agreed to pay him 20 per cent of any amount that might be
recovered from the defendants, and praying that the defendants be
ordered to pay each of them the sums above itemized as actual damage,
or a total of P1,956, legal interest thereon from the filing of the
complaint until fully paid; Pl,000 to each as moral damage, or a total
of P9,000 to all; exemplary damages without fixing or stating any
amount; 20 per cent on the amount to be recovered as attorney’s fees,
the costs of the suit, and for other just and equitable relief.

On 25 June 1958 the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the
complaint on the ground that the Court of First Instance of Cebu had no
jurisdiction over the amount of each plaintiff’s claim which was less
than P2,000.

On 12 July 1958 the plaintiffs objected to the motion to dismiss.

On 12 August 1958 the trial court entered an order dismissing the
complaint for want of jurisdiction, without prejudice to filing it in
the proper court and without costs.

The plaintiffs appealed. The Court of Appeals certified the appeal
to this Court, for jurisdiction is involved and the order appealed from
was on the pleadings.

What amount or sum claimed or sought to be recovered should be the
basis to determine the jurisdiction of the court in a case where each
of several plaintiffs in a complaint seeks to recover an amount from
several defendants? Is it that by each claimant or the total sum sought
to be recovered by all the claimants?

The appellants contend that the aggregate claim which amounts to
P11,347.20 (P1,956 actual damage, P391.20 20 per cent attorney’s fees
and P9,000 moral damage) should be the basis or test of jurisdiction,
for they only have a cause of action against the common appellees that
cannot be split and that as their total claim is more than P2,000 (now
should be more than P5, 000)^[1] the Court of First Instance of Cebu has jurisdiction to hear and determine the case. The appellees claim otherwise.

In Cajilig et al. vs. Co, (109 Phil., 98) this Court held:

It is already settled in this jurisdiction that
where several plaintiffs, having separate and distinct claims against a
common defendant arising out of the same transaction or series of
transactions and involving the same question of law or fact, jointly
sue said defendant as allowed by section 6, Rule 3, of the Rules of
Court, it is the amount of each separate claim, and not
the sum total of all the claims, that furnishes the test for
determining the jurisdiction of the court over the case. * * * (Italics
supplied.)

The order appealed from is affirmed, without pronouncement as to costs.

Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Reyes, J.B.L., Barrera, Paredes, and Dizon, JJ., concur.