LA CAMPANA
DEVELOPMENT G.R. No. 149195
Petitioner, Present:
PUNO, J., Chairperson,
SANDOVAL-GUTIERREZ,
- v e r s u s - CORONA,
AZCUNA and
GARCIA,
JJ.
LALAINE SEE, HENRY SO,
RICARDO Y. KO, OMARIO
LINGAN, REYMAN LIM, MICHAEL
DELIMIOS, LETICIA C. HUI, CHEN
JIANG, a.k.a. SONNY TAN, JOVER
YU CHUA, JORDAN YU CHUA,
.EMERSON GO TIAN, GREGORIO
NG QUE, HERRICK FILTER
MFG. CORP.,
CHUN UN TIAN,
NEW LORD FOOD PRODUCTS,
INC., PAULINO LI, LITE
INTERNATIONAL TRADING
CORP. and ORIENTAL ALUMINUM
& ZINC DIE CASTING CORPORATION,
Respondents. Promulgated:
June 26, 2006
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CORONA, J.:
This is a petition for review on certiorari from a decision of the Court
of Appeals (CA).[1]
The facts of the case follow.[2]
The La Campana compound is a property located
at 1176 EDSA, Balintawak, Quezon
City containing several warehouses and open spaces. Petitioner La Campana Development Corporation (La Campana)
leased several of these warehouses and lots to respondents beginning in the
1980s, with the contracts being renegotiated every one or two years. Respondents religiously paid rent until 1997
when the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) informed them that, by
virtue of the decisions of the Court of Appeals[3]
and the Supreme Court,[4]
it had to come to own the compound. It thereafter took possession of the entire
property. From then on, respondents started paying rent to DBP,
including back rentals.
On April 28, 1999, petitioner filed
an ejectment suit against respondents with the
Metropolitan Trial Court (MeTC) of Quezon City, Branch 31.[5]
On October 12, 1999, the Quezon City MeTC ruled in petitioner’s favor, ordering respondents to pay La Campana back rentals and to vacate the premises. Petitioner then filed a motion for issuance of a writ of execution.
On October 29, 1999, respondents
filed what they termed as a manifestation but which was effectively also a
motion before the MeTC, alleging that petitioner was
guilty of “extrinsic fraud” when it entered into the lease contracts with them.
They prayed for the “rectification” and “modification” of its decision.[6]
On November 3, 1999, before the MeTC could act on their manifestation/motion, respondents
filed with the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Quezon
City, Branch 221,[7] a petition for annulment of the MeTC’s
decision, nullification of the lease contracts and damages with prayer for
preliminary injunction. In it, they
alleged extrinsic fraud and grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack of
jurisdiction on the part of the MeTC.[8]
On November 3, 1999, petitioner filed
a motion to dismiss the petition with the RTC.[9]
Meanwhile, on December 1, 1999, the MeTC granted petitioner’s motion for issuance of a writ of
execution. On December 7, 1999, respondents filed a motion to quash the writ of
execution and to hold its implementation in abeyance.[10] On the same date, the RTC denied petitioner’s
motion to dismiss and granted respondents’ prayer for the issuance of a
temporary restraining order. Petitioner filed a motion for reconsideration from
the denial of its motion to dismiss.
On December 10, 1999, the MeTC ordered the sheriff to cease and desist from enforcing
the writ of execution against respondents.
In an order dated December 23, 1999,
the RTC denied petitioner’s motion for reconsideration.
On December 20, 1999, respondents
filed with the MeTC a motion to withdraw their motion
to quash the writ of execution.
On
December 28, 1999, the RTC issued a writ of preliminary injunction against
petitioner.
On
January 5, 2000, petitioner filed a special civil action for certiorari under
Rule 65 with the CA alleging grave abuse of discretion on the part of the RTC
for having denied its motion to dismiss.
On March 30, 2001, the CA dismissed the petition for lack of merit and
denied reconsideration on July 20, 2001.[11]
The
pivotal issue of this case is whether, by filing their manifestation and their
motion to quash writ of execution in the MeTC, as
well as a petition for annulment of judgment with the RTC, respondents
committed forum shopping.
In
essence, forum shopping is the practice of litigants resorting to two different
fora for the purpose of obtaining the same
relief, to increase their chances of obtaining a favorable judgment. In
determining whether forum shopping exists, it is important to consider the
vexation caused to the courts and the parties-litigants by a person who asks
appellate courts and/or administrative entities to rule on the same related
causes and/or to grant the same or substantially the same relief, in the
process creating the possibility of conflicting decisions by the different
courts or fora on the same issues.[12] We have ruled that forum shopping is present
when, in two or more cases pending, there is identity of (1) parties (2) rights
or causes of action and reliefs prayed for and (3)
the identity of the two preceding particulars is such that any judgment
rendered in the other action, will, regardless of which party is successful,
amount to res judicata
in the action under consideration.[13]
The parties in the two cases are
indisputably identical. The allegations of facts giving rise to respondents’
rights, such as extrinsic fraud and lack of jurisdiction, are also essentially
the same, as are the reliefs prayed for. Finally, in
the light of these close similarities, res judicata may arise.
Acting on the documents filed with them, the RTC and the MeTC may well come up with completely opposite rulings on
the question of whether or not the latter court’s decision should be
implemented. This is the very evil that the proscription on forum shopping
seeks to avert. If they wanted to avoid this kind of problem, respondents
should not have filed what were essentially the same documents with two
different courts.
Respondents’
actions, therefore, inevitably ran afoul of the prohibition on forum shopping.
That
said, petitioner’s resort to certiorari under Rule 65
of the Rules of Court was unwarranted. The RTC’s
denial of petitioner’s motion to dismiss was, at worst, an error in judgment
and not of jurisdiction.
An error of judgment is one which the
court may commit in the exercise of its jurisdiction and which is reviewable only by appeal, while an error of jurisdiction
is one where the act complained of was issued by the court, officer or
quasi-judicial body without or in excess of jurisdiction, or with grave abuse
of discretion tantamount to lack or excess of jurisdiction.[14]
Although there was an error of
judgment in denying the motion to dismiss, nevertheless, such cannot be
considered as grave abuse of discretion correctable by certiorari. Certiorari
is not available to correct errors of procedure or mistakes in the judge’s
findings and conclusions of law and fact. Furthermore, the denial of a motion
to dismiss or to quash, being interlocutory, cannot be questioned by
certiorari. It cannot be the subject of appeal, until a final judgment or order
is rendered.[15]
The proper remedy against an order
denying a motion to dismiss is to file an answer and interpose as affirmative
defenses the objections raised in the motion to dismiss. It is only in the presence of extraordinary
circumstances evincing a patent disregard of justice and fair play where resort
to a petition for certiorari is proper.[16]
A party must not be allowed to delay
litigation by the sheer expediency of filing a petition for certiorari under
Rule 65 based on scant allegations of grave abuse.[17]
WHEREFORE, the petition is hereby DISMISSED.
Costs against petitioner.
SO ORDERED.
Associate Justice
WE CONCUR :
Associate
Justice
Chairperson
Associate Justice
I
attest that the conclusions in the above Decision were reached in consultation
before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court’s
Division.
Associate
Justice
Chairperson, Second
Division
Pursuant to Article VIII, Section 13 of the Constitution, and the Division Chairperson’s Attestation, I hereby certify that the conclusions in the above decision were reached in consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court’s Division.
[1] CA decision dated March 30, 2001 in CA-G.R. SP No. 56507 penned by Associate Justice Alicia L. Santos and concurred in by Associate Justices Ramon A. Barcelona and Rodrigo V. Cosico of the Seventh Division of the Court of Appeals; rollo, pp. 53-66.
[2] Id.,
pp. 54-58.
[3] CA-G.R.
No. 34856
[4] G.R.
No. 124107.
[5] Presided by Judge Mariano M. Singzon, Jr.
[6] Rollo, pp. 72-75.
[7] Presided by Judge Noel G. Tijam (now an Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals).
[8] Rollo, pp. 76-87.
[9] Id., pp. 88-97.
[10] Id., pp. 102-106.
[11] Id., pp. 16-17.
[12] Gochan v. Gochan, 423 Phil. 491 (2001).
[13] Prubankers Association v. Prudential Bank and Trust Co., 361 Phil. 744 (1999).
[14] GSIS v. Olisa, 364 Phil. 59 (1999) quoting Fortich v. Corona, 352 Phil. 461 (1998).
[15] Santiago Land Development Co. v. CA, 328 Phil. 38 (1996).
[16] Tribiana
v. Tribiana, G.R. 137359, 13 September 2004, 438 SCRA 216.
[17] Id.