EVANGELINE WENZEL, ETC., ET AL., PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLANTS, VS. SURIGAO CONSOLIDATED MINING COMPANY, INC., ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES.

Appeal from an order of the Court of First Instance of Surigao,
dismissing plaintiffs’ complaint on defendants’ motion to dismiss. The
appeal was taken to the Court of Appeals, but that court has certified
the case to this Court on the ground that the questions involved are
purely legal.

Plaintiffs’ complaint, which was filed on
March 27, 1953 against the defendants-appellees, is for the annulment
of a confirmatory contract of sale, Annex A, and for the recovery of
ownership and possession of two mining claims, with prayer for damages
and attorney’s fees. The said complaint, under the first cause of
action, in substance alleges that Chester A. Wenzel, father of
plaintiffs Evangeline, Josephine, Elizabeth and John, all surnamed
Wenzel, during his lifetime and more particularly in 1918, located and
staked two mining claims in Tubod, Mainit, province of Surigao, known
as “Boston Placer” and “Mestiza Filipina Dacu Girl and Juanita”, which
were duly registered in the Office of the Mining Recorder of the
province; that said Chester A. Wenzel worked the mining claims and paid
the annual assessment fees thereon up to the time of his death on
September 20, 1930; that thereafter, his widow, Balbina Baguio, now
also deceased, continued working the claims and paid the assessment
fees up to 1934; that on September 4, 1934 (should be Sept. 28, 1935),
defendant Ricardo D. Garcia, acting at the instance of Christian C.
Harris, maliciously and fraudulently caused Balbina Baguio to execute a
“Deed of Acknowledgment of Performance of Contract to be Certification
of Informal Earlier Conveyance by the Vendor”, Annex A, purporting to
confirm the sale of the “Boston Placer” in favor of the Surigao Mainit
Mining Syndicate, predecessor-in-interest of the defendant Surigao
Consolidated Mining Co., Inc.; that the said sale is null and void ab initio
as said mineral claims was the exclusive property of the deceased
Chester A. Wenzel and that Balbina Baguio had no authority to execute
said deed; that plaintiffs succeeded as forced heirs to the said
“Boston” lode mineral claim from the moment of the death of their
father Chester A. Wenzel; that although at the date of the execution of
the document Annex A there was a guardianship proceeding of plaintiffs,
who were minors (Sp. Proc. No. 1261 of the Court of First Instance of
Surigao), Balbina Baguio, as their guardian, did not include said
“Boston” lode mineral claim in the inventory and its sale was without
the approval of the court in said proceedings; that early in 1935,
Christian Harris, in behalf of the Surigao Mainit Mining Syndicate,
caused to be staked and located in the same places where the “Boston
Placer Claim” and “Mestiza Filipina Dacu Girl and Juanita” were
situated, 4 lode mining claims, namely, the “Yes Sir”, “Siana”, “Lorry”
and “Bellang”, the declarations of location of which were filed and
registered in the Office of the Mining Recorder of the province of
Surigao; that the said “Yes Sir” and “Siana” lode claims, which overlap
the “Boston Placer Claim” and “Mestiza Filipina Dacu Girl and Juanita”,
have been worked, mined and operated by the defendant mining company
from 1935 up to the present in bad faith, and for that reason said
company should give an accounting of its operations to plaintiffs.
Under the second cause of action, the complaint alleges that in Civil
Case No. 113 of the same Court of First Instance of Surigao entitled
“Evangeline Wenzel Preston, etc., et al., plaintiffs, vs.
Surigao Mining Consolidated Co., Inc., defendant,” which was decided in
favor of the defendant company and confirmed by the Supreme Court (G.
R. No. L-3832), the defendants Ricardo D. Garcia and Otto F. Weber
presented as evidence two letters dated July 6, 1935 and July 13, 1935,
marked as Exhibits “14” and “15”, respectively, on the strength of
which, the court a quo gave full faith and credit to their
testimonies; that said letters were falsified and altered; and that as
a consequence of their false testimony, plaintiffs suffered exemplary
and moral damages. The complaint, therefore, prays, under the first
cause of action, that the document Annex A be declared null and void;
that plaintiffs be declared the owners of the “Yes Sir” and “Siana”
lode claims; that defendant Surigao Consolidated Mining Co., Inc., be
required to execute the deed of transfer and assignment in favor of
plaintiffs for the two aforesaid mining claims; and that the Director
of Mines be required to recognize plaintiffs’ ownership over the two
lode claims and to issue the corresponding patents therefor in favor of
plaintiffs. Under the second cause of action, the complaint prays that
defendants be condemned to pay plaintiffs, jointly and severally, the
sum of P100,000 for exemplary damages, P50,000 for moral damages, and
P10,000 for attorney’s fees and expenses of litigation.

Instead of answering, the defendant Director of Mines filed a motion to
dismiss the complaint on the ground that it does not state a cause of
action against him upon which relief could be granted. The defendants
Surigao Consolidated Mining Co., Inc., Otto F. Weber and Ricardo D.
Garcia, thru counsel, likewise, filed a motion to dismiss on the ground
that plaintiffs’ action is barred by the final judgment rendered in
Civil Case No. 113 as affirmed by the Supreme Court; that the complaint
states no cause of action; and that the action is barred by the statute
of limitations.

There being no opposition to the motions to
dismiss, and finding the reasons therein alleged to be well taken, the
lower court on December 7, 1953, issued an order dismissing the
complaint. Reconsideration of this order having been denied, the
plaintiffs took the present appeal.

The appeal is without merit.

Briefly stated, plaintiffs’ complaint is for the recovery of two mining
claims, the “Boston Placer. Claim” and the “Mestiza Filipina Dacu Girl
and Juanita”, and of damages occasioned by the perjury alleged to have
been committed by defendants Ricardo Garcia and Otto F. Weber, two of
the witnesses of the defendant mining company in Civil Case No.-113 of
the court below. These matters, however,—as pointed out by
defendants-appellees—have already been adjudicated in said Civil Case
No. 113. In that case, herein plaintiffs sought to enforce against the
Surigao Consolidated Mining Co., Inc., their alleged rights to a parcel
of land situated in Barrio Tubod, Mainit, province of Surigao, and to
the mining claims Yes Sir, Siana, Bellang and Lorry located thereon by
the latter. Said plaintiffs originally prayed for the annulment of the
sale of one-half interest of the land executed by Balbina Vda. de
Wenzel, plaintiffs’ predecessor-in-interest, in favor of the Surigao
Mainit Mining Syndicate, for an accounting of the profits and benefits
derived by the defendant company from the use, operation and possession
of said one-half interest from 1949 up to the filing of the complaint,
and for the partition of the property. The complaint was later amended
to enable the plaintiffs to change their original theory, which change
consists in that instead of merely asking for a partial rescission of
the sale, they pray that it be totally nullified for the reason that
Balbina Baguio had been the victim of cajolery and fraud on the part of
some directors of defendant company. The trial court, however, after a
protracted trial at which both parties presented voluminous evidence,
both testimonial and documentary, found plaintiffs’ claim to be without
justification in fact and in law and dismissed the case with costs
against them. On appeal to this Court, the decision was affirmed, the
Court stating that Balbina Baguio executed the deed of sale conveying
the property to the defendant company for valuable consideration fully
conscious of its real import. At the time, said this Court, she was the
appointed guardian of the persons and property of her minor children,
herein plaintiffs, and she made the transfer not only in her own right
but in behalf of her children. The deed of sale was also submitted t6
the court in the guardianship proceedings, for approval and the court
granted its approval after making some suggestions which would best
protect the interests of the minors. “All this”—continued this
Court—”appears in the testimony of Ricardo Garcia, who is at present
the incumbent provincial fiscal of Surigao. This also appears in
exhibit ’14’, ’14- A’, ’15’, ’15-A’ and ’15-B’ which have reference to
the correspondence that was exchanged between fiscal Garcia and
attorneys Johnston and Armstrong who were apparently representing Otto
F. Weber in the transaction. The court found no reason to doubt the
credibility of fiscal Garcia. The court also gave full faith and credit
to said exhibits for, as the court remarked, ‘These letters were
written long before this case was filed or even contemplated, and their
writers could not have foreseen that the same would one day be used as
evidence in this case.’ “

Located on the land in dispute in
said Civil Case No. 113 is the “Boston Placer Claim”, which this Court,
likewise, found to have been sold by Balbina Baguio on September 24,
1934 to the Surigao Mainit Mining Syndicate, and which sale she later
acknowledged on September 28, 1935. (Exhibit 7 in Civil Case No. 113;
Annex A of the complaint in the instant case.)

It thus
clearly appears that the matters or issues raised by plaintiffs in this
case have already been judicially tried and determined by a court of
competent jurisdiction, and its decision, as affirmed by this Court,
has long become final. Under the principle of res judicata,
that judgment constitutes a bar to the present action for the recovery
of the mining claims here in question which after all, are within the
same land litigated therein. As a matter of fact, plaintiffs’ complaint
in this case alleges that their mining claims “overlap the Yes Sir and
Siana mining claims of the defendant company,” and these mining claims,
as already seen, are located in the parcel of land conveyed for
valuable consideration to the defendant company’s predecessor in
interest. The fundamental principle upon which the doctrine of res judicata
rests is that a matter once adjudicated shall not again be drawn in
issue while the former adjudication remains in force; that, when a
right or fact has been judicially tried and determined by a court of
competent jurisdiction, or an opportunity for such trial has been
given, the judgment of the court, so long as it remains unreversed,
should be conclusive upon the parties and those in privity with them.
(Moran’s Comments on the Rules of Court, Vol. I, 1957 ed., pp. 608-609.)

Neither may plaintiffs sustain their action against the defendants for
damages allegedly occasioned by the falsification and alteration of the
letters of two of its witnesses presented as evidence in the case.
These charges are conclusively negatived by the adjudication in Civil
Case No. 113, where the testimony of said witnesses were given full
faith and credit. (Freeman on Judgments, Vol. 2, 5th ed., par. 782;
Mandac vs. Gumarad et al., 87 Phil., 278; 47 Off. Gaz. Supp. (12) 449, cited in Moran’s Rules of Court, 1957 ed., Vol. 1, p. 609.)

There are, to be sure, more defendants joined in the present case than
in the former; but a perusal of the allegations of the complaint will
readily show that only the Surigao Consolidated Mining Co., Inc., is
concerned under the first cause of action. Under the second cause of
action, the proper party defendants are Ricardo D. Garcia and Otto F.
Weber, there being nothing alleged in the complaint with respect to the
other defendants. Eliminating the latter two named defendants, the
charges made against them as witnesses being, as already said,
conclusively negatived by the former adjudication, it will be seen that
the parties in this case are actually the same as the parties in the
former case. At any rate, it has been held that there is still identity
of parties although in the second action there is one party who was not
joined in the former action, if it appears that such party is not a
necessary party either in the first or in the second action. (Moran’s
Rules of Court, Vol. 1, 1957 ed., p. 782.)

The point is made
by plaintiffs that the relief sought in Civil Case No. 113 is different
from the relief prayed for in the present. The only difference,
however, if it can be considered a difference at all, is that in the
former, the relief includes the recovery of the parcel of land on which
the mining claims are situated. Well settled is the rule that a party
cannot, by varying the form of action, or adopting a different method
of presenting his case, escape the operation of the principle that one
and the same cause of action shall not be twice litigated between the
same parties or their privies. (Francisco vs. Blas et al., 93 Phil., 1.)

In any event, the document Annex A sought to be annulled was executed
way back on September 28, 1935, And according to the allegations of the
complaint itself, the defendant Surigao Consolidated Mining Co., Inc.,
had from that year up to the present worked, mined and operated the Yes
Sir and Siana Lode claims, which overlap the two mining claims that
used to belong to their deceased father. Plaintiffs’ action, therefore,
to recover these mining claims and to annul said deed of sale has
already prescribed, said action having been filed in 1953, or after the
lapse of more than 18 years from the time their cause of action
accrued. The argument that the period of prescription was tolled during
the minority of the plaintiffs is untenable. The same complaint alleges
that at the time of the execution of the document Annex A on September
28, 1935, “there was a guardianship proceeding of the plaintiffs who
were minors”, the guardian being their mother Balbina Baguio. What is
more, the sale was approved by the court in the guardianship
proceedings. Such being the case, it cannot be validly claimed that
prescription did not run against them. (See Art. 1932 of the old Civil
Code; Art. 1108 of the new.)

In view of the foregoing, the
order of dismissal appealed from is affirmed, with costs against
plaintiffs-appellants.

Paras, C. J., Bengzon, Montemayor, Bautista Angelo, Labrador, Concepcion, and Barrera, JJ., concur.

Reyes, J.B.L., and Endencia, JJ., did not take part.