SECOND DIVISION
DIGNA
CONSUMIDO, G.R.
No. 166875
Petitioner,
Present:
QUISUMBING,
J.,
Chairperson,
- versus - CARPIO,
CARPIO
MORALES,
TINGA,
and
HON.
REYNALDO G. ROS, VELASCO,
JR., JJ.
Presiding
Judge, Regional Trial
Court
of Manila, Branch 33,
RAMON
SAURA, JR., and Promulgated:
FATIMA
SAURA,
Respondents.
July 31, 2007
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D E C I S I O N
Tinga,
J.:
The instant Rule 45 petition assails the Decision[1] dated
In their ejectment[6] complaint
before the MeTC of Manila, docketed as Civil Case No.
170458, respondent spouses Ramon, Jr. and Fatima Saura
averred that sometime in 1995, they entered into two lease contracts with
petitioner Digna Consumido,
wherein they leased to her Unit 982 and Unit 980 located on A.H. Lacson Street, Sampaloc, Manila and she, in
turn, undertook to pay rentals at P6,400.00 per month and P6,000.00
per month, respectively.[7]
According to respondents, petitioner
started defaulting on rental payments on Unit 982 and Unit 980 in the last
quarter of 1996 and August 1997, respectively. Despite repeated demands,
petitioner failed to pay the accrued rentals and to vacate the leased premises,[8] prompting respondents to file the complaint. They asked for judgment ordering petitioner
to vacate the premises and pay the accrued rentals totaling P615,000.00, plus attorney’s fees.[9]
In
her Answer,[10]
petitioner averred that she entered into the said lease contracts not with respondents
but with the late Ramon Saura, Sr., father of
respondent Ramon, Jr. The father organized Villa Governor Forbes Corporation
(VGFC), the administrator of the leased premises, petitioner added.[11]
According to petitioner, until June
1999, she religiously paid the rentals to respondents, who had assumed the
administration of the leased premises after the death of Ramon Saura, Sr., not knowing that as early as
After summary proceedings, the MeTC rendered a decision[13] on
and respondents had acted merely as
administrators and/or representatives of VGFC upon the execution of the lease
agreements, the MeTC declared respondents as not the
real parties-in-interest.[14]
The RTC reversed the MeTC decision.[15]
Based on its finding that petitioner continued to remit the rentals to
respondents when they assumed administration of the leased premises after the
death of Ramon Saura, Sr., it held that respondents
were entitled to the material possession of the leased premises.[16] The RTC also found that the leased premises
was previously the ancestral home of respondents, who remained in possession
thereof even after the disputed sale of the leased premises by VGFC to SREDC.
In its Decision dated
WHEREFORE, the decision appealed from is REVERSED. The
defendant is ordered:
1. To vacate the leased premises;
2.
To pay the plaintiffs
the rental in arrears for both units the amount of Php714,800.00 representing
the unpaid rentals from 1996 to December 2001, as well as rental that are
unpaid, until the time the defendant has actually vacated the leased premises;
3.
To pay the amount of
Php20,000.00 as attorney’s fees; and
4.
To pay the cost of suit.
SO ORDERED.[17]
On appeal, the Court of Appeals
rendered a Decision[18]
on
The Court of Appeals sustained the RTC’s conclusion that the material possession of the leased
premises pertained to respondents as it was bolstered by petitioner’s admission
that she remitted rentals to them before she allegedly discovered that respondents
were not the registered owners of the leased premises. It also held that
petitioner was precluded from controverting the title
of her landlord, asserting any rights adverse to that title or setting up any
inconsistent right to change the relation existing between them.[20]
Hence, the instant petition ascribing
the following errors to the Court of Appeals:
A. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS COMMITTED SERIOUS
REVERSIBLE ERROR OF FACT AND LAW WHEN IT RULED THAT PRIVATE RESPONDENTS ARE THE
REAL PARTIES IN INTEREST TO FILE THE EJECTMENT SUIT, AS SUCH RULING IS BASED ON
PURE CONJECTURES AND PRESUMPTIONS.
B. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS COMMITTED SERIOUS
REVERSIBLE ERROR WHEN IT RULED THAT PRIVATE RESPONDENTS HAD THE RIGHT TO EJECT
PETITIONER HAVING ESTABLISHED A BETTER RIGHT OF POSSESSION.[21]
The crux of the controversy is
whether there was a subsisting lease agreement between petitioner and respondents,
which, upon the breach thereof by petitioner, entitled respondents, as the real
parties-in-interest, to institute the ejectment suit.
In short, the question is who is the landlord?
Petitioner maintains that respondents
instituted the ejectment suit in their personal
capacities and not in representation of the VGFC, the previous owner of the
leased premises.
On the other hand, respondents contend
that petitioner is estopped from asserting that no landlord-lessee
relationship exists between them because petitioner previously admitted in her
answer that she religiously remitted rentals to respondents. They theorize that
petitioner’s act of continuously remitting rentals to respondents after the
death of Ramon Saura, Sr. is an acknowledgement that
respondents are her landlords and successors-in-interest of the late Ramon Saura, Sr.
The petition is meritorious.
One who has no right or interest to
protect cannot invoke the jurisdiction of the court as party-plaintiff in
action for it is jurisprudentially ordained that every action must be
prosecuted or defended in the name of the real party in interest.[22]
“Interest” within the meaning of the
rules means material interest, an interest in issue and to be affected by the
decree as distinguished from mere interest in the question involved, or a mere
incidental interest. A real party in interest is one who has a legal right.
Since a contract may be violated only by the parties thereto as against each
other, in an action upon that contract, the real parties-in-interest, either as
plaintiff or as defendant, must be parties to the said contract. The action
must be brought by the person who, by substantive law, possesses the right
sought to be enforced.[23]
In an action for unlawful detainer, the real party in interest is the landlord,
vendor, vendee or other person against whom the possession of any land or
building is unlawfully withheld after the expiration or termination of his right
to hold possession, by virtue of a contract, express or implied.
The records show that petitioner did
not enter into the lease agreement with respondents. Other than their bare
allegations, respondents failed to present sufficient evidence showing that
they are the landlords of the leased premises or its successors-in-interest or
are authorized to institute the ejectment suit in the
name of the real party in interest.
The MeTC’s
finding that VGFC is the landlord appears to be more plausible under the
circumstances. Since a corporation is only a juridical person, it must act
through its officers or agents in the normal course of business. Petitioner
admitted that she entered into the lease contracts with the late Ramon Saura, Sr. While no written lease agreement was ever
submitted in evidence, it is likely that at the time of the agreement, the late
Ramon Saura, Sr. was acting on behalf of VGFC, which,
since 1979, had been the registered owner of the leased premises before its
purported sale to SREDC, the present registered owner.
That respondents were parties to the
lease agreement is not supported by the evidence on record. Respondents were
able to establish only as far as accepting the rental payments from petitioner.
However, this fact alone cannot vest in them the right of a landlord but of a
mere administrator or representative of the late Ramon Saura,
Sr. and/or VGFC. Thus, as pointed out by the MeTC,
respondents cannot institute the ejectment suit in
their personal capacities. They must present their authority to prosecute the ejectment suit in the name of the real party in interest. This respondents
failed to do.
In civil cases, the burden of proof
is on the plaintiff to establish his case by a preponderance of evidence. If he
claims a right granted or created by law, he must prove his claim by competent
evidence. He must rely on the strength of his own evidence and not on the
weakness of that of his opponent.[24] And
he, having the burden of proof, will be defeated if no evidence were given on
either side.[25]
Respondents as plaintiffs in the
action for unlawful detainer had the burden of
proving their allegations inasmuch as they claim that they were parties to the
lease contracts. Respondents failed
miserably to meet the burden of proof.
Respondents argue that petitioner is estopped from denying the landlord-lessee relationship
between the parties because of her admission that she paid rentals to
respondents in her belief that the former were the owners of the premises.
For estoppel
to apply, the action giving rise thereto must be unequivocal and intentional
because, if misapplied, estoppel may become a tool of
injustice.[26] Estoppel is a principle that, as a rule, can be invoked
only in highly exceptional and legitimate cases.[27]
The essential elements of estoppel in respect to the
party claiming it are: (a) lack of knowledge and of the means of knowledge of
the truth as the facts in question; (b) reliance, in good faith, upon the
conduct or statements of the party to be estopped;
and (c) action or inaction based thereon of such character as to change the
position or status of the party claiming the estoppel,
to his injury, detriment, or prejudice.[28]
The first element is absent in the
instant case. Respondents cannot claim estoppel
against petitioner because they knew fully well that they were accepting
rentals from petitioner in their capacity as mere administrators of the leased
premises or only on behalf of the late Ramon Saura,
Sr. and/or VGFC. Respondents cannot assert that they did not know for a fact
that they were never parties to the lease agreement. The fact that petitioner
initially thought respondents were the owners of the leased premises does not
put her in estoppel because respondents were expected
to know in what capacity they accepted the payments.
Neither is petitioner estopped in denying respondents’ title. The conclusive
presumption set forth in Rule 131, Section 2(b)[29]
of the Rules of Court applies only when the landlord and tenant relationship
has been sufficiently established. In the case at bar, this is precisely the
issue to be resolved as petitioner has consistently alleged that there was no
lease agreement between the parties. Moreover, respondents themselves have not
asserted ownership over the leased premises, the truth of the matter being that
respondents were never the registered owners of the leased premises.
WHEREFORE, the instant petition for
review on certiorari is GRANTED and the Decision dated
SO ORDERED.
DANTE
O. TINGA
Associate
Justice
WE
CONCUR:
LEONARDO A. QUISUMBING
Associate Justice
Chairperson
ANTONIO T. CARPIO CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES
Associate Justice
Associate Justice
PRESBITERO J. VELASCO, JR.
Associate Justice
ATTESTATION
I attest that the conclusions in the
above Decision had been reached in the consultation before the case was
assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court’s Division.
LEONARDO
A. QUISUMBING
Associate Justice
Chairperson, Second Division
CERTIFICATION
Pursuant to Section 13, Article VIII
of the Constitution, and the Division Chairperson’s Attestation, it is hereby
certified that the conclusions in the above Decision had been reached in
consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the
Court’s Division.
REYNATO
S. PUNO
Chief Justice
[1]Rollo, pp. 13-20. Penned by Juan Q. Enriquez, Jr., J., and concurred in by Salvador Jr. Valdez, Jr., Chairperson of the Ninth Division, and Vicente Q. Roxas, JJ.
[22]Borlongan v. Madrideo, 380 Phil. 215, 224 (2000), citing the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 3, Section 2.
[25]Borlongan v. Madrideo,
380 Phil. 215, 223 (2000), citing Summa Insurance Corporation v. Court of
Appeals, 253 SCRA 175 (1996).
[26]
[27]Arcelonia
v. Court of Appeals, 345 Phil. 250, 284 (1997).