CHUA A. H. LEE, PETITIONER, VS. EMILIO MAPA, AS AUXILIARY JUDGE OF FIRST INSTANCE PRESIDING OVER THE THIRD BRANCH OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF MANILA, CORNELIO CRUZ, AND HI…

In his petition for a writ of prohibition, Chua A. H. Lee
complains of orders entered and promulgated by the Third Branch of the Court of
First Instance of Manila, Judges Opisso and Mapa presiding, granting a stay of
execution as in excess of the jurisdiction of the court. Although the
respondents have deemed it for their best interests to answer the petition,
there exists no controversy as to any material fact.

The present petitioner, Chua A. H. Lee, was successful in
obtaining a favorable decision in the Third Branch of the Court of First
Instance of Manila in civil case No. 30569, the dispositive part of which was as
follows:

“Therefore, let judgment be entered in favor of plaintiff and
against defendants declaring that Exhibits C and E are loan contracts with the
personal property mentioned therein as pledges for security and ordering
defendants to pay jointly and severally to plaintiff the sum of six thousand
five hundred and twenty pesos (P6,520) with legal interest thereon from the date
of the filing of the complaint, September 25, 1926, until paid, and to pay the
costs.

“Upon default on the part of the defendants to satisfy the
amount of the judgment, the securities above referred to will be sold at public
auction according to law, and the proceeds applied to the payment of the amount
of this judgment.

“It is so ordered.

“Manila, P. I., March 31, 1927.

“GEO. R. HARVEY
“Judge”

On appeal, the judgment was formally affirmed.^[1] After the record was remanded to the court
of origin, execution was issued out of that court on November 22, 1927, against
the properties of the defendants, Mr. and Mrs. Cruz, without any mention being
made of the property specifically pledged to the plaintiff. The defendants
appeared and asked for a stay of thirty days in order to raise the necessary
funds with which to pay the judgment. This stay was granted by Judge Del Rosario
on December 8, 1927. Following correspondence between counsel for the parties in
which the attorneys for the defendants indicated their willingness to pay the
amount of the judgment provided the pledges were returned to them, which
proposition was rejected by the attorney for the plaintiff, Cornelio Cruz and
his wife instituted a separate action in the Court of First Instance of Manila
against Chua A. H. Lee, being civil case No. 32865 of that court, for the
recovery of damages in the total sum of P6,729 arising from the loss of the
pledges hereinbefore referred too. On the same date, Mr. and Mrs. Cruz moved for
a stay of execution in the case of Chua A. H. Lee vs. Cruz pending final
determination of the said civil case No. 32865. That motion was ordered granted
by Judge Opisso upon filing by the defendants of a bond in the sum of P7,000 in
favor of the plaintiff conditioned on the payment by said defendants of the full
amount of the judgment, together with interest and costs. On the presentation of
a motion of reconsideration, Judge Mapa stated that he found no ground for
setting aside the order, and, therefore, denied the motion.

It is fairly evident that the original decision of Judge
Harvey, which was affirmed by this court, contemplated a money judgment in favor
of Chua A. H. Lee and against Mr. and Mrs. Cornelio Cruz secured by pledges
which were first to be sold at public auction to satisfy the amount of the
judgment. Judge Opisso is responsible for the statement in his order that at the
time that the case went to trial all of the pawn tickets were in full force and
effect. It is on the irregular issuance of the writ of execution in violation of
the terms of the judgment, and on the proposition that Chua A. H. Lee as pledgee
was in duty bound to preserve the legal validity of the pawn tickets in question
by paying the premium thereon that the herein respondents principally rely.
Although it is not incumbent upon us at this stage of the proceedings to make
any pronouncement on the questions thus indicated, the stand assumed by the
herein respondents in the lower court is outlined in order further to elucidate
the situation.

In support of his theory of the case, petitioner relies greatly
on the cases of Shioji vs. Harvey ([1922], 43 Phil., 333); Cabigao and Izquierdo
vs. Del Rosario and Lim ([1922], 44 Phil., 182); and Wolfson vs. Del Rosario and
Fajardo ([1924], 46 Phil., 41). The trial judge examined these authorities and
found them not applicable to the case.

The doctrine of the cited cases is that whatever was before the
appellate court and there disposed of, must be regarded as finally settled, and
that the inferior court cannot review or interfere with any matter decided on
appeal, or give other or further relief. That, it must be conceded, is a correct
exposition of the law. What was stated to this effect in Shioji vs. Harvey,
supra, and later reaffirmed in Cabigao and Izquierdo vs. Del Rosario
and Lim, supra, is again adhered to and expressly sanctioned. The
decisions in these cases were intentionally framed in emphatic language to keep
lower courts from assuming supervisory jurisdiction to interpret or to reverse
the judgment of the higher court. But the decisions can only be understood in
relation with the facts on which they were predicated and with the corollaries
to general doctrines. Thus in Cabigao and Izquierdo vs. Del Rosario and Lim,
supra, the court was careful to say that “Conceivably, circumstances
might arise subsequent to the return of a case from the Supreme Court to the
trial court which might justify postponement of the execution of the judgment in
the case * * *,” while in Wolfson vs. Del Rosario and Fajardo, supra,
it was pointed out “that the court retains a certain amount of control over a
writ of execution even after it leaves its hands.”

It is here plain that the defense now relied upon and which is
pressed affirmatively in the new action, started in the lower court is such that
it could not have been foreseen at the time of the trial of the case. It is also
evident that the circumstances now invoked by the herein respondents have arisen
subsequent to the remanding of the record from the Supreme Court to the trial
court. For these reasons, the case is decidedly not one where an attempt is
being made to interpret or to reverse the judgment of the higher court.

In relation with the points above indicated, there joins up the
incidental power of a court to amend and control its process and orders so as to
make them conformable to law and justice (Code of Civil Procedure, sec. 11, No.
7), and the discretionary power of a Court of First Instance by special order to
stay execution (Code of Civil Procedure, sec. 144). In this connection, one
ground of relief from an execution refers to facts occurring subsequent to the
judgment. So it has been held that a stay may be allowed on grounds which are in
their nature peculiarly equitable, as for instance to give defendant an
opportunity to set off a claim against plaintiff. And this remains true
notwithstanding affirmance of the judgment by the Supreme Court, which imparts
no higher quality than to a final judgment unappealed from, except that it
cannot be questioned or reviewed. (23 C. J., 522; Blackburn vs. Reilly [1886],
48 N. J. Law, 82; Ex parte Burrill [1864], 24 Cal., 350.)

We rule that the Judge who issued the order staying the
execution and the Judge who denied the motion of reconsideration acted advisedly
and within the jurisdiction conferred upon them by law. Hence the petition for
the writ of prohibition must be as it is hereby denied, with costs.

Villamor, Ostrand, Johns, Romualdez, and
Vill-Real, JJ., concur.

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[1] Chua A. H. Lee vs. Cruz and Serrano de Cruz, G.
R. No. 27985, promulgated October 29, 1927, not reported.