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

Desamito versus Casas-Cuyegkeng

The Case

This is a civil action for damages and for the fixing of a lease term, brought by Rose Desamito, a dress-shop operator and tenant, against her lessor Trinidad Casas-Cuyegkeng and the latter's husband. The tenant claimed that the lessor broke an agreement to allow the transfer of the lease to a buyer of the dress-shop business, causing the buyer to withdraw and inflicting grave losses. The case matters because it is the classic illustration of lis pendens and of the bar of prior judgment: the tenant had already pleaded the very same facts and asked for the very same damages in an earlier ejectment case that had been tried and decided against her, and the Court holds that she cannot litigate the same issue twice.

Procedural History

The story begins in the Municipal Court of Manila, where the lessor filed an ejectment case against the tenant. The municipal court decided in favor of the lessor, ordering the tenant to vacate and to pay rentals in arrears, costs, and attorney's fees, and dismissing her counterclaim. The tenant appealed to the Court of First Instance of Manila, where the appealed case was docketed, and there she filed a new answer reproducing her earlier averments. After trial, the Court of First Instance affirmed the municipal court's judgment. That decision was elevated to the Court of Appeals, which likewise affirmed the lessor, and the Supreme Court later declined to review it, so that the affirmance became final and executory.

Meanwhile, the tenant had filed a separate action for damages and for the fixing of the lease term in the Court of First Instance. The spouses moved to dismiss it on the ground of lis pendens, but the motion was denied because the ejectment case was still on appeal. The tenant then amended her complaint, dropping the prayer to fix the lease term and amplifying her claim for damages. The spouses reiterated their motion to dismiss, and the Court of First Instance, through Judge Felix Q. Antonio, dismissed the complaint because the causes of action in both cases were predicated on the same facts and the ejectment case was the more appropriate forum. Her motions for reconsideration were denied, and she resorted directly to the Supreme Court by appeal.

Facts

For about eight years, Rose Desamito occupied premises on Isaac Peral in Manila, operating a dress shop called Fifth Avenue, paying monthly rent that began at 430 pesos and later settled at 400 pesos. She claimed the lessor had assured her she could stay as long as she wished at that rate. In late 1958 the lessor sought to raise the rent to 500 pesos effective January 1959, and the tenant objected.

To resolve the impasse, the tenant proposed to sell her business to a buyer, provided the lessor would consent to transferring the lease to that buyer. The lessor agreed on condition that the new occupant pay 500 pesos monthly. The tenant found a buyer, Federico Gomez, who offered to purchase the business and pay the agreed rent. When the lessor learned the sale price was 10,000 pesos, she demanded a rent of 600 pesos monthly, or 2,400 pesos out of the proceeds. The tenant refused, Gomez withdrew his offer, and the tenant claimed heavy damages.

The lessor then filed the ejectment case. In her answer there, the tenant set out these same facts, reserved her claim for damages for the Court of First Instance, and counterclaimed for improvements and attorney's fees. When the case reached the Court of First Instance on appeal, she again pleaded the same facts and expressly asserted her claim for damages and attorney's fees. That court resolved the damages issue against her, and its ruling became final.

Issues

• Whether or not the separate action for damages may proceed, given that the same facts and the same claim for damages had already been pleaded and tried in the appealed ejectment case.
• Whether or not the Court of First Instance could validly take cognizance of and decide the damages issue in the ejectment appeal, considering that the amount exceeded the jurisdiction of the municipal court.
• Whether or not the final judgment in the ejectment case bars the relitigation of the damages issue in the later action.

Applicable Provisions

Section 11 of Rule 40 of the Rules of Court provides:

Section 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.

This provision is the authority by which the Court of First Instance, on appeal from the municipal court, could itself try and decide the damages claim because the parties pleaded and went to trial without objection.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the tenant herself had placed the damages question squarely in issue in the appealed ejectment case. Her answer there alleged that the buyer's withdrawal caused her pecuniary, moral, and other damages of 125,000 pesos, and that she was entitled to 5,000 pesos in attorney's fees. These allegations, the Court said, put in issue the very liability for damages she sought to recover in the separate action. It was the tenant herself who, in violation of the parties' arrangement, submitted the identical issue in two different cases, and the lessor had the right not to be required to litigate the same issue twice.

On the second issue, the Court held that the Court of First Instance could take cognizance of the damages claim in the exercise of its original jurisdiction, because no objection was interposed. The Court relied on Section 11 of Rule 40, quoted above, which allows the Court of First Instance to try the case on the merits where the parties file their pleadings and go to trial without objection to jurisdiction.

On the third issue, the Court held that the decision in the ejectment case, having been affirmed by the Court of Appeals and left undisturbed by the Supreme Court, had become final and executory. Further relitigation of the issue was therefore foreclosed and barred. Since in both cases the same parties pleaded the same facts and sought the same remedies, the Court found no error in the refusal to proceed with the damages case.

Doctrine

A party may not split a single cause of action and pursue it in two courts at once. Where the same facts and the same relief are pleaded in an earlier case that has been tried and decided, the later action is barred by lis pendens and by the prior judgment. A claim for damages that is pleaded and tried, without objection, in an appealed ejectment case may be validly decided by the Court of First Instance under its original jurisdiction, as Section 11 of Rule 40 allows, and once that judgment becomes final it forecloses relitigation of the same issue.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the orders dismissing the complaint, with costs against the tenant Rose Desamito, so that the lessor Trinidad Casas-Cuyegkeng prevailed.

Remember This

The one line to memorize: a litigant who pleads the same facts and seeks the same relief in two courts splits her cause of action at her peril, and the first final judgment bars the second. Examiners use this case to test lis pendens, the bar of prior judgment, and the power of the Court of First Instance under Section 11 of Rule 40 to try on the merits a claim beyond the municipal court's jurisdiction when no objection is raised.