ROSE DESAMITO, PLAINTIFF -APPELLANT, VS. TRINIDAD CASAS-CUYEGKENG, ASSISTED BY HER HUSBAND ALFONSO CUYEGKENG, DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES.

This is a direct appeal from an order of the Court of First Instance of
Manila, in its Civil Case No. 39449, sustaining defendants’ motion to dismiss
plaintiff’s amended complaint, on the ground of lis pendens between the
parties, and, from two (2) later orders of the same court, denying plaintiff’s
first and second motions to reconsider said order of dismissal.

The records reveal that on February 10,1959 Trinidad Casas-Cuyegkeng
instituted ejectment proceedings against her tenant, Rose Desamito, in the
Municipal Court of Manila (Civil Case No. 64814) to recover possession of
premises at 474 Isaac Peral, Manila, operated by said tenant as a dress shop
named “Fifth Avenue”. Plaintiff averred that the defendant had failed to pay
rental for November and December, 1958 and January, 1959 totalling P1,300; that
the plaintiff needed the premises for her own use and that of her family, but
the tenant refused to vacate.

In her answer to the complaint for ejectment defendant, on September 13,
1959, by way of special defenses, alleges, among others, that for a period of 8
years she has been occupying the premises in question, paying the corresponding
monthly rental, firstly, at the rate of P430.00 monthly and subsequently at the
rate of P400.00 a month, with the assurance given by the plaintiff that
defendant could continue occupying the aforesaid premises as long as she wants
at the same monthly rental of P400.00, which might be reduced later in
consideration of the long occupancy of the premises by defendant; that on or
about October 31, 1958, in violation of the agreement, plaintiff notified
defendant she wanted to raise the monthly rental from P400.00 to P500.00,
effective January 1, 1959, to which proposition defendant objected; that in view
of the insistence of plaintiff in increasing the rental of the premises in
question, the defendant told the plaintiff that she would sell her business
situated in the premises to any interested buyer, provided that plaintiff would
consent to the transfer to the prospective buyer of the defendant’s lease or
right to the premises, to which proposition the plaintiff agreed with the
condition that the new occupant or buyer of defendant’s dress shop would pay a
monthly rental of P500.00; that relying on this agreement the defendant looked
for a buyer and, as a matter of fact, found one Mr. Federico P. Gomez who
offered to buy the dress shop business and to pay the agreed rental of P500.00
monthly on the premises in question: that defendant consequently transmitted to
the plaintiff the offer of the buyer to purchase defendant’s business for her
conformity in writing; that upon learning that Mr. Gomez was purchasing
defendant’s business for P10,000.00 plaintiff demanded that the monthly rental
for the premises should be increased to P600.00, or that the defendant should
pay to plaintiff the sum of P2,400.00 out of the proceeds of sale, to which
proposition defendant naturally refused; that by reason of plaintiff’s
actuation, Mr. Gomez cancelled his offer to purchase the dress shop of
defendant, resulting in “pecuniary, moral and other damages suffered by the
defendant in the amount of over P125,000.00” for which she reserved action in
the court of first instance; and by way of counterclaim, defendant alleged that
she was entitled for improvements in the premises in the amount of P2,000.00
together with attorney’s fees in the sum of P500.00.

Subsequently, on April 1, 1959, defendant Desamito filed an amended answer
reproducing the allegations above summarized plus an additional averment that,
having stayed almost 8 years in the premises, defendant was entitled to ask the
court to fix a longer period for the lease, which she prayed to be set at 5
years from the filing of the complaint.

While the ejectment case was pending in the Municipal Court, Rose Desamito,
as plaintiff this time, filed the present action against her lessor Casas and
her husband in the court of first instance (Case No. 39449), averring three
causes of action on practically the same facts pleaded in Desamito’s answers in
Case No. 64814 of the Municipal Court, and on the basis thereof seeking (1) to
have the period of lease fixed by the court; (2) to recover compensatory, moral
and other damages totalling P 135,600.00; and (3) to recover P5,000.00
attorneys’ fees.

After the court had denied a motion to dismiss, defendants Casas-Cuyegkeng
answered the complaint on March 12, 1959 denying having agreed to the transfer
of Desamito’s lease to Mr. Gomez; that the lease was from year to year, expiring
on every January 31; that there was another case pending in the Municipal Court
between the same parties on the same issues; and counterclaimed for P25,000
damages and P5,000 attorney’s fees. The plaintiff Desamito traversed the
counterclaim.

On May 20 the municipal court decided the ejectment case in favor of the
landlord Casas, ordering Desamito to vacate, pay P3,300 rentals in arrears, plus
P500 a month from May, 1959, and P200 costs and attorney’s fees, and dismissing
her counterclaim. The tenant Desamito then appealed to the Court of First
Instance, and on July 1, 1959 the case was there docketed as Civil Case No.
40481. There the appellant, Desamito, filed a new answer, and reproduced the
averments she had made in the Municipal Court.

Before this appealed case could be tried, Rose Desamito died and was
substituted by her sister, Soledad Desamito Reyes, as her legal representative.
After trial, on January 5, 1961, Judge Lantin of the Court of first Instance
decided the appealed ejectment case, affirming the judgment of the Municipal
Court ordering the tenant to vacate the premises within 30 days from finality of
the decision, to pay rentals and attorney’s fees with interest and costs, and
dismissing the counterclaim.

At this juncture, the spouses Casas-Cuyegkeng moved to dismiss the case for
damages where they were defendants (C.F.I. No. 39449), pleading the decision in
the ejectment case (C.F.I. No. 40481); but because the latter had been appealed
to the Court of Appeals (where it was later docketed as CA-G.R. No. 29066) the
motion to dismiss was denied.

One month later, on July 22,1961, plaintiff amended the complaint by
suppressing the first cause of action regarding the fixing of the lease term by
the court and retaining the others, amplifying the averment of damages by
charging that the lessor’s breach of her commitment not to object to the
transfer of the lease to Mr. Federico Gomez, and the latter’s resultant
withdrawal from the contemplated transfer, subjected Rose Desamito to mental
anguish, anxiety, shock and humiliation that caused her premature death, causing
compensatory, moral, nominal and temperate damages to the extent of P135,600.00,
and praying for indemnity, therefore, with attorney’s fees.

Casas-Cuyegkeng then reiterated the motion to dismiss, on the ground of
another action pending between the same parties, on the same facts and issues.
After the matter had been extensively argued, the Court of Eirst Instance, per
Judge Felix Q. Antonio, ordered the complaint dismissed, because in both cases
(C.F.I. No. 40481 and 39449) “the causes of action are predicated on the same
facts”, and “that the ejectment case is the more appropriate for the
determination of the issues involved”.

Her petitions for reconsideration proving fruitless, the plaintiff resorted
directly to this Court. While the appeal was pending here, the Court of Appeals
decided the ejectment case (C.A. G.R. No. 29066), affirming the decision of the
Court of First instance in favor of the lessors. The Supreme Court refused
certiorari, and dismissed Desamito1 s petition for lack of merit on April 27,
1962, so that the decision of the Court of Appeals became final and
executory.

The petitioner-appellant does not seriously dispute the identity of the facts
pleaded by her in her answer in the ejectment case (C.F.I. Case No. 40481) with
those averred in her amended complaint for damages in the case at bar (C.F.I.
Case No. 39449). She contends, however, that the cases remain separate and
unidentified. Her argument is that the issue of the damages caused by the
lessor’s alleged breach of her advance commitment to approve the transfer of the
lease to F. R. Gomez could not be properly adjudicated in the ejectment case
because petitioner-appellant did not claim such damages in the Municipal Court,
as the amount thereof (P135,600) lay outside the jurisdiction of that court.
Hence, she continues, neither could the Court of First Instance take cognizance
of that issue on appeal from the decision of the court of origin.

The record proves that while the appellant, in answering the complaint for
illegal detainer in the Municipal Court, did reserve the question of damages for
the Court of First Instance; yet when the same case reached the latter court on
appeal, she filed there (Case No. 39449) an answer reproducing the same facts
alleged in the court of origin, and asserted in its paragraphs 15 and 19
that—

“15. That, by reason of the plaintiff’s change of front and unjustifiable
demands, Mr. Gomez cancelled his offer to buy defendant’s dress-shop business,
resulting in pecuniary, moral and other damages suffered by the defendant in the
amount of P125,000.00;

X X X X X X X X X X

“19. That defendant is further entitled to recover attorney’s fees in the sum
of P5,000.00 (Defendant’s Answer, July 1, 1959).”

These allegations squarely put in issue in the appealed ejectment case (No.
40481) the very question of liability for damages that Desamito tried to recover
in the other case (C.F.I. Case No. 39449) now before us. There being no
objection interposed, the Court of First Instance in the appealed case (No.
40481) could, and did, take cognizance of the issue of damages in the exercise
of its original jurisdiction, and resolved it adversely against appellant
Desamito. Authority for this action of the court is found in section 11 of Rule
40 of the Rules of Court:

“SEC. 11. Lack of jurisdiction. – A case tried by an inferior court
without jurisdiction over the subject matter shall be dismissed on appeal by the
Court of First Instance. But instead of dismissing the case, the Court of First
Instance in the exercise of its original jurisdiction, may try the case on the
merits if the parties therein file their pleadings and go to the trial without
any objection to such jurisdiction.”

The decision of the Court of First Instance, adverse to appellant-lessee in
the ejectment case, was affirmed later by the Court of Appeals (C.A.-G.R. No.
L-29066-R), as heretofore noted; and that decision having become final because
this Court declined to review it (G.R. L-19655), further relitigation of the
issue was foreclosed and barred.

We thus find that in both cases in the Court of First Instance between the
same parties the appellant Desamito pleaded the same facts and sought the same
remedies. No error was, therefore, committed by the Court of First Instance in
refusing to proceed with Case No. 39449, since the issues laid before it had
already been tried and decided in C.F.I. Case No. 40481.

Appellant stresses that the parties had agreed in 1959 to have the Municipal
Court decide on the term of the lease, while the matter or damages would remain
in the Court of First Instance in Case No. 39499. But when the Municipal Court
decided against appellant in the ejectment case, and she appealed to the Court
of First Instance in Case No. 40481, she repleaded the facts already in her
complaint for damages in Case No. 39449. Thus, it was appellant herself who, in
violation of the agreement, submitted the identical issue in two different
cases. Upon this state of facts, appellees Casas-Cuyegkeng had the right not to
be required to litigate the same issue in two different courts: and as the
question was submitted and tried in Case No. 40481 of the Court of First
Instance and was there decided before the trial of Case No. 39449, said
appellees may not be required to thresh out the issue once more in the latter
case.

IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, the orders appealed from are affirmed, with
costs against petitioner-appellant.

Concepcion, C.J., Dizon, Regala, Makalintal, Bengzon, J.P.,
Zaldivar, Sanchez and Ruiz Castro, concur.