R. S. PANGILINAN & CO., INC., PETITIONER, VS. HON. JUDGE L. PASICOLAN, ETC., ET AL., RESPONDENTS.

This is an original action for a writ of certiorari with preliminary
injunction, which was issued by this Court upon the filing of the
requisite bond.

In an amended complaint filed in Civil Case No. 1088 of the Court of
First Instance of Pampanga, initiated on June 25, 1956, petitioner, It.
S. Pañgilinan & Co. Inc., was sued by respondents herein, excluding
respondent Judge L. Pasicolan, or thirty-two (32) plaintiffs therein,
for services allegedly rendered as laborers in the construction of
Floodgate No. 1 of the River Control in the municipalities of Macabebe
and Masantol, province of Pampanga, along the Bebe-San Esteban
diversion channel. It was alleged in Paragraph III of said amended
complaint that the plaintiffs therein and respondents herein (except
respondent Judge) had “furnished labor for the defendant (petitioner
herein) in the construction of said Floodgate No. 1, as laborers with
compensation at the rates hereinbelow stated, from November 14, 1955 to
March 10, 1956, for so many number of days hereinafter mentioned, and
have earned and received the following:

Name of Laborer	Number of Days	Rate Per Day	Wages Due	Amount Paid	Balance Due
Jose Manansala	88	P5.00	440.00	140.00	300.00
Gregorio Manansala	88	5.00	440.00	140.00	300.00
Primitivo Manansala	88	5.00	440.00	140.00	300.00
Leonardo F. Manansala	83½	4.00	344.00	134.00	200.00
Reynaldo Calma	83½	4.00	344.00	134.00	200.00
Antonio Garcia	34	4.00	136.00	36.00	100.00
Emiliano S. Manansala	71½	4.00	286.00	100.00	186.00
Onofre Coronel	33	4.00	132.00	32.00	100.00
Isidro Manansala	8	4.00	32.00	none	32.00
Pedro Manansala	40½	4.00	162.00	62.00	100.00
Emiliano Manansala	84	4.00	336.00	136.00	200.00
Jesus Gaddi	59	4.00	236.00	100.00	136.00
Bienvenido Calma	75½	4.00	302.00	102.00	200.00
Eulogio Bautista	8	4.00	32.00	4.00	28.00
Amado Manuyag	6	4.00	24.00	none	24.00
Federico Nieto	73	4.00	294.00	94.00	200.00
Pedro G. Manansala	34	4.00	136.00	40.00	96.00
Alfredo O. Castro	41	4.00	164.00	64.00	100.00
Demetrio Manuyag	69½	4.00	278.00	100.00	178.00
Romualdo Tullao	9	4.00	36.00	none	36.00
Gregorio Tolentino	67	4.00	268.00	68.00	200.00
Luciano Tolentino	41	4.00	164.00	64.00	100.00
Atiliano Tolentino	29	4.00	116.00	40.00	76.00
Arturo Bengco	6	4.00	24.00	none	24.00
Martin Mendoza	6½	4.00	26.00	none	26.00
Leon Angeles	65	4.00	260.00	100.00	160.00
Rudencio Manansala	58½	4.00	234.00	134.00	100.00
Guillermo Manansala	88	P5.00	P440.00	P140.00	P300.00
Amado Manansala	23	4.00	92.00	40.00	52.00
Teodoro Manansala	79	5.00	395.00	195.00	200.00
Ricardo S. Manansala	74	4.50	333.00	133.00	200.00
Prudencio Nieto	43	4.00	172.00	72.00	100.00
			_________	_________	_________
Total			P7,098.00	P2,544.00	P4,554.00

and
that, despite demands made, petitioner herein had failed and refused to
pay the aggregate balance of P4,554.00 thus still due to the
aforementioned laborers, who, accordingly, prayed for judgment against
petitioner herein for said sum of P4,554.00, plus P500 as attorney’s
fees, and not less than P10,000, by way of actual, moral,
consequential, and exemplary damages.

Petitioner herein alleges that, during the trial of said
case, respondent Judge Pasicolan, who presides over the lower court,
entertained doubts on its jurisdiction to hear the case, the amount
claimed by each plaintiff therein being much less than P2,000, the
minimum amount of the original jurisdiction of courts of first
instance, at that time, in civil cases susceptible of pecuniary
estimation, and, accordingly, required the parties to submit memoranda
thereon. Thereafter, or on October 24, 1957, respondent Judge, relying
upon the decision of this Court in Campos Rueda Corporation vs.
Sta. Cruz Timber Company, Inc. (98 Phil., 627; 52 Off. Gaz., 1389)
reach the conclusion that case No. 1088 is within the jurisdiction of
the lower court, and issued an order for the reception of the evidence
necessary for the determination of the merits of the amended complaint.
A reconsideration of said order having been denied by respondent Judge,
petitioner herein instituted the case at bar, with the prayer that the
lower court be declared to have no jurisdiction to entertain said civil
case No. 1088 and ordered to dismiss the same with costs.

Although duly summoned, none of respondents cared to
answer the petition herein, but their counsel, as well as that of
petitioner herein, argued orally at the hearing of the present case.
Hence, the same was submitted for our decision upon the verified
allegations of the petition herein and the copies of the pleadings and
orders annexed thereto.

In the aforementioned Campos Rueda
case, upon which the order appealed from is predicated, there was only
one plaintiff-creditor, although there were two (2) defendants-debtors.
Such is not the situation obtaining in Civil Case No. 1088, in which
there are 32 plaintiffs, the claim of each one of whom is entirely
distinct and separate from that of the others, and the individual
claims for wages range from P24 to P300, apart from the share of each
claimant in the attorney’s fees and damages sought to be recovered,
amounting to less than P829.00. Thus, no individual claim exceeds
altogether P330, which is within the original exclusive jurisdiction of
justice of the peace and municipal courts. Although the amended
complaint in Civil Case No. 1088 alleges in paragraph II thereof that
plaintiffs therein were hired “collectively” by an alleged
representative of petitioner herein, the above quoted paragraph III in
said amended complaint shows that plaintiffs therein and respondents
herein were hired at different rates of daily wages and for different
periods of time; that said plaintiffs therein and respondents herein
consider that the balance of the amounts of wages specified after their
respective names is due to each of them; that the latter do
not claim to have any right or interest in what is thus allegedly due
the others; and that they do not pretend or assert to have a collective
right to the sum of P4,554,00 representing the aggregate total of thei.
alleged individual credits.

Considering that the latter are
not joint or indivisible; that each one of the aforementioned plaintiff
could, have legally sued on their individual claims without running
counter to the principle against the splitting of a cause of action;
and that had any one of them chosen to sue for what is allegedly due
him, the decision rendered on his claim would not bar the action of the
others, it is apparent that said Case No. 1088 falls squarely within
the purview of A. Soriano y Cia vs. Jose (86 Phil., 523, 47 Off. Gaz., [12th Supp.] 156) and International College Inc. vs.
Argonza, (90 Phil., 470), and that the amount of each separate claim,
not the sum total of all claims, is determinative of the jurisdiction
of the lower court. Indeed, although in the Campos Rueda case this
Court held that “the jurisdiction of the court depends upon the
totality of the demands, in all the causes of action, irrespective of
whether plural causes constituting the total claim arose out of the
same or different transactions” we, likewise, declared that this rule
is subject to two exceptions, one of which is “where the claims joined
under the same complaint are separately owed by or due to different
parties”—as in civil case No. 1088—in which event “each separate claim
furnishes the jurisdictional test.” This rule was, on August 1, 1959,
incorporated in section 88 of the Judiciary Act of 1948, as amended by
Republic Act No. 2613.

The facts in the Soriano case were:

“* * * Alleging that prior tri August 28, 1948, A. Soriano y Cia,
engaged the plaintiffs as employees or laborers at its surplus
department at Sta. Mesa yard in different capacities,, and that on
diverse dates between May 17 and September 80, 1948, Soriano y Cia, had
dismissed them without cause, the plaintiffs, twenty-nine in number,
brought a joint complaint In the municipal court, which was docketed as
civil case No. 6058, against their former employer, praying that
judgment be rendered sentencing the defendant to pay each of them one
month salary in lieu of 30 days’ notice. The total of the claim is
P5,235, and the largest single claim is P300. Contending that the
municipal court had no jurisdiction to try the action because the
amount of the demand exceeded P2,000, exclusive of interest and costs,
the defendant filed a motion to dismiss, and, after that motion was
denied, instituted proceedings for certiorari in the Court of First
Instance, the result of which is stated at the outset of this decision.”

Referring to the issue of jurisdiction, this Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Tuason, expressed itself as follows:

“* * * In Hackner vs. Guaranty Trust Co. of
New York (4 Fed. Rules Serv., 378; U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals,
Second Circuit, Jan. 13, 1941; 117 F. [2d], 95), it was held that,
‘When two or more plaintiffs, each having a separate and distinct
demand, join in a” single suit, the demand of each must be of the
requisite jurisdictional amount. Aggregation of the claims to make up
the jurisdictional amount is permitted only if the claims are of a
joint nature, as when it is sought to enforce a single right in which
plaintiffs have a common interest,’ As American Jurisprudence Vol. 14,
p. 413, puts it, ‘Where several claimants have separate and distinct
demands against a defendant or defendants, which may properly be joined
in a single suit, the claims, can not be added together to make up the
required jurisdictional amount; each separate claim furnishes the
jurisdictional test.’

“The petitioner believes that the joining of plaintiffs
having separate claims should be controlled by the principle bearing on
the court’s jurisdiction in suits where one plaintiff alleges in one
complaint several independent causes of action, in which case it is the
aggregate amount which determines the jurisdiction. But there is a
fundamental difference between such cases and one like that before us.
In the first, the total demand accrues to one person, while in the
latter only part of the combined demand, which does not exceed the
jurisdictional amount, pertains to a single plaintiff. In other words,
the court takes into account what one party would recover and not what
is adjudged to all parties or some of them.”

For these reasons, we upheld the jurisdiction of the municipal court
to hear and decide the main case. This view was reiterated in the case
of the International Colleges Inc., involving 25 dismissed teachers
thereof, who jointly sued said entity, in the municipal court, for
unpaid salaries, all aggregating P14,211.13, but with the highest
individual claim not exceeding P1,300. In a unanimous decision, we
declared that the case was within the jurisdiction of the municipal
court.

The amended complaint against petitioner herein in the
aforementioned Civil Case No. 1088 in effect sets up several causes of
action due to different parties, which causes of action are within the
jurisdiction of justice of the peace courts and beyond that of the
courts of first instance, for which reason the writ prayed for is
granted and the writ of preliminary injunction issued by this Court
hereby made permanent, with costs against the main respondents. It is
so ordered.

Paras, C. J. Bengzon, Montemayor, Bautista Angelo, Labrador, Reyes, J. B. L., Barrera, and Gutierrez David, JJ., concur.
Padilla and Endencia, JJ., took no part.