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CHARLIE VIOS
and SPS. ROGELIO and
TERESITA ANTONIO, and as nominal party, Hon. Emilio L. Leachon,
Presiding Judge, RTC, Br. 224, Quezon City, Petitioners, - versus - MANUEL PANTANGCO, JR., Respondent. |
G.R. No. 163103
Present: QUISUMBING, J., Chairperson, carpio
MORALES, TINGA, VELASCO, JR., and BRION, JJ. Promulgated: February 6, 2009 |
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D E C I S I O N
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BRION,
J.: |
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We resolve the petition for review on certiorari[1]
of the Decision of October 10, 2003 of the Court of Appeals (CA)[2]
in Manuel Pantangco, Jr. v. Hon. Emilio L. Leachon, Presiding Judge of
Branch 224, RTC, Quezon City, Charlie Vios and Sps. Rogelio and Teresita
Antonio, docketed as CA-G.R. SP No. 47031, and the Resolution dated April
2, 2004 that denied the motion for reconsideration of the appealed
Decision.
ANTECEDENTS
The Ejectment Case at the
Metropolitan
Trial Court
Respondent Manuel Pantangco, Jr. (Pantangco)
filed with the Metropolitan Trial Court (MTC), Branch 32, Quezon City a
complaint for ejectment and damages against petitioners Charlie Vios (petitioner Vios) and the Spouses
Rogelio and Teresita Antonio (Spouses Antonio) (collectively, the petitioners),
docketed as Civil Case No. 37-8529. Pantangco
alleged in his complaint that: (1) he is a co-owner – by purchase from the
former owner – of a residential land located on Sampaguita St., Barangay
Pasong Tamo, Quezon City registered under TCT No. 76956; (2) prior to his
purchase of the property, he inquired from the petitioners whether they were
interested in buying the property; when the petitioners responded that they
were not, he told them that he would give them one (1) week from his purchase
of the property to vacate the premises; he claimed that the petitioners agreed;
(3) after the consummation of the sale to him, the petitioners refused to
vacate notwithstanding the agreement; and (4) he filed the complaint when no
settlement was reached before the Pangkat Tagapagkasundo.
The petitioners specifically denied in
their Answer the material allegations of the complaint and pleaded the special
and affirmative defenses that: (1) the disputed property belongs to the
government since it forms part of unclassified public forest; (2) the real
previous owner of the property was Alfredo Aquino, from whom they acquired
their rights through a document entitled “Waiver”; (3) Pantangco's title is
fake as it originated from Original Certificate of Title No. 614 which was
nullified in a decision in Civil Case No. 36752 rendered by Judge Reynaldo V.
Roura of the Regional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 83, Quezon City; and (4)
assuming Pantangco's title to be valid, the property it covers is different
from the premises they (the petitioners) occupy. They asked for the dismissal of the complaint
and the payment of damages by way of a counterclaim.
Petitioner
Vios was represented at the MTC proceedings by his counsel of record, Atty.
Oscar D. Sollano (Atty. Sollano), while the petitioners Spouses Antonio
were represented by Atty. Manuel C. Genova (Atty. Genova).
After appropriate
proceedings, the MTC rendered on
On
Pantangco, on the other hand, filed on
On
The
Sheriff issued on
The MTC denied the motion to quash the
writs of execution and demolition in its Order dated
The
Certiorari Case at the RTC
On
On
annulling
the writ, the RTC said:
Since there was lack of notice to the petitioners (referring to the petitioners here), the period for appeal has not expired and the decision has not become final and executory which made the writ of execution subsequently issued as null and void.[3]
The
dispositive portion of the RTC decision reads:
Accordingly, therefore, the Court has to render judgment for the petitioners [referring to petitioners Vios and the Spouses Antonio] as against the public and private respondent [referring to private respondent Pantangco, Jr.] and hereby sets aside the decision of the MTC, Branch 37, Quezon City dated July 12, 1996 and the writ of execution dated August 30, 1996.
The Court likewise orders that the petitioners be restored to their possession of the subject premises and that all fixtures removed from the subject premises as a result of dispossession be restored to petitioners.
The private respondent is hereby directed and ordered to exercise his options under Article 448 of the New Civil Code, that is, either to appropriate the houses of petitioners after payment of the proper indemnity or to require the petitioners to pay the value of the land, except when the value of the land is greater than the value of the building in which case to require each petitioners to pay rent which should be P3,5000.00 per month for the use and occupancy of the land in question effective on turn-over of the subject premises to petitioners.
IT
IS SO ORDERED.
On
On
At the
Court of Appeals
On
The CA rendered its assailed decision on
Now to the issue of whether respondent Vios had been notified of the MTC Decision, through his former counsel of record, Atty. Oscar D. Sollano. This Court painstakingly examined the voluminous records of the case, particularly the MTC Record, which, by mandate of this Court, was elevated for our consideration, and found the same barren of any notice, filed by Atty. Oscar D. Sollano either before or after the promulgation of the MTC Decision, signifying his withdrawal as counsel for respondent Vios. Neither is there in the record any notice coming from respondent Vios himself informing the court of the withdrawal of Atty. Oscar D. Sollano as his counsel of record. Consequently, the MTC cannot be faulted for furnishing a copy of its Decision to respondent Vios, through Atty. Oscar D. Sollano.
Having been validly
notified of the MTC Decision through his counsel of record, respondent Vios had
fifteen (15) days within which to appeal the aforesaid Decision. More specifically, he had until
To our mind, the MTC had been rather precipitate in issuing the writ of execution to enforce its Decision even before it could act on private respondent Charlie Vios' motion to be furnished a copy of the Court's decision filed two (2) days before it became final and executory. It is on this basis that we are unable to accord the mantle of finality to the MTC Decision. To do so would deprive respondent Vios' of his right to due process, particularly his right to be notified fully of the MTC Decision against him and to elevate the same on appeal to a higher court. Since, the MTC Decision has not attained finality, the writ of execution issued pursuant thereto, is consequently, invalid and improper.
x x x x
In the instant case,
it cannot be gainsaid that the RTC went beyond the ambit of its jurisdiction
when it nullified the MTC Decision in an original action for certiorari and
mandamus. While it was correct in
its ruling that grave abuse of discretion attended the issuance of the writ of
execution, it went too far when it ruled on the insufficiency of the evidence
adduced by petitioner to establish his claim of rightful possession over the
subject property. Not only that. The RTC made a determination as well on the
rights of the parties to the improvements built on the subject property under
the pertinent provisions of the New Civil Code, which it is not permitted to do
in an original action for certiorari and mandamus. Not even the assailed MTC Decision, which
contains no disposition regarding the parties' rights to the improvements but
limited itself to a resolution of who between petitioner and private
respondents have a better right of possession over the subject property,
warrants such a determination. It
follows, therefore, that the RTC Decision, except in so far as it nullified the
writ of execution issued by the MTC in the ejectment proceedings, is itself
null and void for lack of jurisdiction.
Finally, it must be stressed that only respondent Vios instituted the special civil action assailing the MTC decision before the RTC. Private respondents Spouses Gregorio [sic, should be Rogelio] and Teresita Antonio were never a party thereto. Yet, in its Decision, the RTC found not only for respondent Vios, but as well for Spouses Gregorio and Teresita Antonio. In fact, the RTC Decision, in its entirety, considered respondents Spouses Antonio a party to the proceedings before it, when actually they were not, to the manifest prejudice of petitioner, as the Antonio's neither appealed the MTC Decision nor questioned the corresponding writ of execution issued pursuant thereto.
The CA denied, via the
Resolution also assailed in this petition, the motion for reconsideration
petitioner Vios subsequently filed.
THE
PETITION
The petitioners’ lone cited error
states:
The Honorable Court of Appeals committed an error
in entertaining the petition to declare the nullity of the decision of the RTC
even if the available remedy was an ordinary appeal and therefore the RTC
decision which set aside the MTC decision and restoring the petitioners to
their possession of the subject premises has attained the stage of finality.
This assigned error actually consists of two (2)
component arguments, namely:
1.
The petition for certiorari
that petitioner Vios filed with the RTC
was an original action and the proper remedy to question the RTC’s decision is
an ordinary appeal to the CA; the CA thus erred in entertaining Pantangco's Petition for Declaration of Nullity of the
RTC Decision.
2.
In this light, the petitioners
additionally argued that the RTC decision which was not appealed became final;
and, right or wrong; the RTC’s ruling
became the law of the case that may
no longer be disturbed.
THE COURT'S
RULING
We find the petition partially meritorious.
What is the proper remedy from
the decision of
the RTC in a
petition for certiorari?
A petition for certiorari – the remedy that petitioner
Vios availed of to question the MTC decision before the RTC – is an
original action whose resulting decision
is a final order that completely disposes of the petition. The proper remedy from the RTC decision on
the petition for certiorari that petitioner Vios filed with that court is
an ordinary appeal to the CA under Section 2, Rule 41 of the Revised Rules of
Court. Particularly instructive on this
point is our ruling in Magestrado v.
People of the
The
procedural issue herein basically hinges on the proper remedy which petitioner
should have availed himself of before the Court of Appeals: an ordinary appeal
or a petition for certiorari.
Petitioner claims that he correctly questioned RTC-Branch 83's Order
of dismissal of his Petition for Certiorari in Civil Case No. Q-99-39358
through a Petition for Certiorari before the Court of Appeals. Private
respondent and public respondent People of the
We agree with respondents. We hold that the
appellate court did not err in dismissing petitioner's Petition for Certiorari,
pursuant to Rule 41, Section 2 of the Revised Rules of Court (and not under
Rule 44, Section 10, invoked by the Court of Appeals in its Resolution dated
The correct procedural recourse for petitioner
was appeal, not only because RTC-Branch 83 did not commit any grave abuse of
discretion in dismissing petitioner's Petition for Certiorari in Civil Case No.
Q-99-39358 but also because RTC-Branch 83's Order of dismissal was a final
order from which petitioners should have appealed in accordance with Section 2,
Rule 41 of the Revised Rules of Court.
An order or a judgment is deemed final when it
finally disposes of a pending action, so that nothing more can be done with it
in the trial court. In other words, the order or judgment ends the litigation
in the lower court. Au contraire, an interlocutory order does not
dispose of the case completely, but leaves something to be done as regards the
merits of the latter. RTC-Branch 83's
Order dated
Under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court, an appeal may be taken from a judgment or final order that completely disposes of the case, or of a particular matter therein when declared by the Revised Rules of Court to be appealable. The manner of appealing an RTC judgment or final order is also provided in Rule 41 as follows:
Section 2. Modes of
appeal. —
(a) Ordinary
appeal. — The appeal to the Court of Appeals in cases decided by the Regional
Trial Court in the exercise of its original jurisdiction shall be taken by
filing a notice of appeal with the court which rendered the judgment or final
order appealed from and serving a copy thereof upon the adverse party. No
record on appeal shall be required except in special proceedings and other
cases of multiple or separate appeals where the law or these Rules so require.
In such cases, the record on appeal shall be filed and served in like manner.
Certiorari
generally lies only when there is no appeal nor any other plain, speedy or
adequate remedy available to petitioners. Here, appeal was available. It was
adequate to deal with any question whether of fact or of law, whether of error
of jurisdiction or grave abuse of discretion or error of judgment which the trial
court might have committed. But petitioners instead filed a special civil
action for certiorari.[5]
As in
this cited case, Pantangco did not appeal.
In lieu of an appeal, Pantangco sought to review the RTC certiorari
decision through a “Petition for Declaration of Nullity of the RTC Decision”
that is apparently based on Rule 47 of the Rules of Court.
Rule 47
is a remedy based on external fraud and lack of jurisdiction.[6] The intent to use this Rule suggests itself,
not only because of the title of the petition, but because of its substance. Among other arguments, Pantangco claimed
nullity of the RTC decision for lack of jurisdiction; only interlocutory orders
of the MTC are subject to the RTC certiorari jurisdiction; final MTC orders
must be appealed.[7] He likewise stressed that the RTC has no
jurisdiction to reverse the decision of the MTC using a Rule 65 petition for certiorari
because the Rule applies only to interlocutory orders rendered with grave
abuse of discretion amounting to lack of or excess of jurisdiction.[8]
Pantangco’s Rule 47 remedy is
fatally defective because its use against an RTC decision in a certiorari
case is foreclosed by the availability of an appeal to the CA. Section 1 of
Rule 47 provides that it covers only annulment of judgments for which the ordinary remedies of new trial, appeal, petition for relief or other appropriate remedies
are no longer available through no fault of the petitioner.[9] Ramirez-Jongco
v. Veloso III[10]
instructively tells us:
The remedy of annulment of judgment can […] be
resorted to only where ordinary and other appropriate remedies, including
appeal, are no longer available through no fault of the petitioner. In the case at bar, the loss of the remedies
of appeal and certiorari is attributable to the petitioners. Despite the manifestations of their intention
to file an appeal, and subsequently a petition for certiorari, and their
request for an extension of the filing period, the petitioners never availed of
these remedies. Realizing the consequence
of their negligence, the petitioners filed a petition for annulment of judgment
in a last ditch effort to reverse the decision of the regional trial
court. The rules do not sanction
petitioners’ procedural lapse.
Thus, the CA erred from the very
beginning in ruling on Pantangco’s petition; Pantangco opted for a mode of
review other than the appeal that the Rules of Court require.
In light of the erroneous remedy taken from
the RTC decision, is the RTC decision now
the controlling or final determination of the
dispute between the parties?
A.
Law of the
Case Doctrine versus Doctrine of Finality of
Judgment
We start our consideration by
re-stating the petitioners’ basic position: the RTC decision has become final
because of Pantangco’s clearly erroneous remedy; this final decision is now the
law of the case between the parties.
The law of the case doctrine applies in a situation where an appellate court has
made a ruling on a question on appeal and thereafter remands the case to the
lower court for further proceedings; the question settled by the appellate
court becomes the law of the case at the lower court and in any
subsequent appeal. It means that
whatever is irrevocably established as the controlling legal rule or decision
between the same parties in the same case continues to be the law of the case, whether correct on general principles or not,
so long as the facts on which the legal rule or decision was predicated
continue to be the facts of the case before the court.[11]
Based on
this definition, the petitioners' heavy reliance on the law of the case
doctrine is clearly misplaced. No opinion
has been made in a former appeal that can be considered the controlling legal
rule or decision between the same parties thereafter. There is no remanded case to which a previous
ruling on appeal applies.
Rather
than the law of the case doctrine, the petitioners may actually be invoking the
binding effect of what they view as a
final RTC decision on the theory that the RTC decision already determined
the rights of the parties with finality and binding effect. This is the doctrine of finality of judgment or immutability of judgment, defined and explained as follows:
It is a hornbook rule that once a judgment has become final and executory, it may no longer be modified in any respect, even if the modification is meant to correct an erroneous conclusion of fact or law, and regardless of whether the modification is attempted to be made by the court rendering it or by the highest court of the land, as what remains to be done is the purely ministerial enforcement or execution of the judgment.
The doctrine of finality of judgment is grounded on fundamental considerations of public policy and sound practice that at the risk of occasional errors, the judgment of adjudicating bodies must become final and executory on some definite date fixed by law. […], the Supreme Court reiterated that the doctrine of immutability of final judgment is adhered to by necessity notwithstanding occasional errors that may result thereby, since litigations must somehow come to an end for otherwise, it would “be even more intolerable than the wrong and injustice it is designed to correct.”[12]
If this indeed is the legal doctrine the petitioners
refer to, the question that arises is whether the RTC decision is a ruling to
which the doctrine can apply. If it is a
judgment otherwise valid even if
erroneous in content, then it is a judgment that should thereafter be
followed. On the other hand, it cannot
be so cited if it is an intrinsically void judgment.
B.
The status of the RTC Decision.
We
cannot recognize the RTC decision as
a completely valid decision; it is partly void for lack of jurisdiction. Specifically, the RTC has no jurisdiction to
review, reverse or modify, in any manner whatsoever, the MTC's decision on
the merits of the ejectment case via
a petition for certiorari filed under Rule 65; if the petitioners
wanted a review of the MTC decision, they should have instead filed an
appeal.
Certiorari is
a remedy designed for the correction of errors of jurisdiction, not errors of
judgment. When a court exercises its
jurisdiction, an error committed while so engaged does not deprive it of the
jurisdiction being exercised when the error was committed. Otherwise, every error committed by a court
would deprive it of its jurisdiction and every erroneous judgment would be a
void judgment. This cannot be
allowed. The administration of justice
would not survive such a rule.
Consequently, an error of judgment that the court may commit in the
exercise of its jurisdiction is not correctable through the original civil
action of certiorari. The
supervisory jurisdiction of a court over the issuance of a writ of certiorari cannot be exercised for the purpose of reviewing the
intrinsic correctness of a judgment of the lower court – viz., on
the basis either of the law or the facts of the case, or of the wisdom or legal
soundness of the decision. Even
if the findings of the court are incorrect, as long as it has jurisdiction over
the case, such correction is normally beyond the province of certiorari. Where the error is not one of jurisdiction,
but of an error of law or fact – a mistake of judgment – appeal is the proper
remedy.[13]
In the present case, the RTC – apart from
nullifying the writ of execution the MTC issued – also reversed the MTC
decision on the merits for being contrary to the evidence; at the same
time, the RTC applied and determined the rights of the parties under Article
448 of the Civil Code – an issue that the MTC never tackled.
This is the kind of review that we
have consistently held to be legally improper for being outside the RTC’s certiorari
jurisdiction to undertake. Thus, the RTC
decision is partly void insofar as it modified and reversed the MTC decision on
the merits. In this light, the RTC
decision cannot be fully considered a
final and controlling ruling that must govern the parties. All RTC actions anchored
on its decision on the merits, particularly its determination of the rights
of the parties under Article 448 of the Civil Code, are consequently void for
want of legal basis. On the other hand, the RTC dispositions on matters within
its jurisdiction or competence to decide are valid and binding. In this case, these are the dispositions
related to the finality of the MTC decision and the writ of execution it
issued.
To
recapitulate, we hold that the CA erred in taking cognizance and fully ruling
on Pantangco’s Petition for Declaration of Nullity of the RTC Decision despite
Pantangco’s wrong remedy; Pantangco should have appealed and the availability
of appeal foreclosed all other review remedies.
To this extent, we grant the petition.
We cannot, however, rule – as the petitioners advocate – that the CA’s
error shall result in the full enforcement of the RTC decision since this
decision itself is partly void as above discussed.
WHEREFORE, premises
considered, we PARTIALLY GRANT the petition and declare the
Court of Appeals in error in ruling on the merits of respondent Pantangco’s
Rule 47 petition. We DENY the petition insofar as it asks us
to recognize the decision of the Regional Trial Court dated August 4, 1997 as
fully valid and binding; the only valid aspects we can recognize are those relating
to the lack of finality of the decision of the Municipal Trial Court dated July
12, 1996 and the invalidity of the writ of execution that the Municipal Trial
Court subsequently issued. The parties
are directed to act guided by this Decision.
SO ORDERED.
ARTURO D. BRION
Associate Justice
WE
CONCUR:
LEONARDO
A. QUISUMBING
Associate Justice Chairperson |
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CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES Associate Justice |
DANTE O. TINGA Associate Justice |
PRESBITERO J. VELASCO, JR.
Associate Justice
ATTESTATION
I attest 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.
LEONARDO
A. QUISUMBING
Associate Justice
Chairperson
CERTIFICATION
REYNATO
S. PUNO
Chief Justice
[1] Filed under
Rule 45 of the Revised Rules of Court.
[2] Penned by Associate Justice Rebecca de Guia
[3] Rollo, p. 132.
[4] G.R. No. 148072. July 10, 2007, 527 SCRA 125; see also our Resolution in Tensorex
Industrial Corporation v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 117925, October 12,
1999, 316 SCRA 471.
[5]
[6] Rule 47, Sec. 2.
[7] Rollo, pp. 148-149.
[8]
[9] Rule 47, Section 1 provides:
SEC. 1. Coverage. – This Rule shall govern the annulment by the Court of Appeals of judgments or final orders and resolutions in civil actions of Regional Trial Courts for which the ordinary remedies of new trial, appeal, petition for relief or other appropriate remedies are no longer available through no fault of the petitioner.
[10] G.R. No. 149839,
[11] See Bañes v. Lutheran Church in the Philippines G.R. No. 142308, November 15, 2005, 475 SCRA 13, 30-31; See also: United Overseas Bank of the Philippines v. Rose Moor Mining and Development Corporation, G.R. No. 172651, October 2, 2007, 534 SCRA 528, 542-543, citing Padillo v. Court of Appeals, 371 SCRA 27, 41-43 (2001).
[12] Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines, Inc., Sales Force Union-PTGWO-BALAIS v. Coca-Cola Bottlers, Philippines, Inc., G.R. No. 155651.
[13] See People v. Laguio, G.R. No. 128587, March 16, 2007, 518 SCRA 393, 410-411, citing Madrigal Transport, Inc. v. Lapanday Holdings Corporation, 436 SCRA123, 134 (2004).