San Juan vs. Valenzuela

G.R. No. L-59906 October 23, 1982

BUENAVENTURA SAN JUAN, petitioner,
vs.
HON. MANUEL E. VALENZUELA, Judge of the Court of First Instance of Rizal and DOROTEA MEJIA, respondents.

Facts:

The marriage of respondent Mejia and petitioner was declared null and void on the ground of a prior and subsisting marriage between petitioner and one Isabel Bandin.  Respondent instituted the action seeking support for herself and her two minor children. Petitioner sought reduction of the amount of support pendent lite for the reason it is beyond his means to pay.

Issue: WON the amount fixed previously can be changed.

Held:

Change or reduction of the amount should be resolved by the lower court on the basis of the evidence to be presented at the proper hearing. The order fixing the amount of support pendente lite is not final in character in the sense that it can be the subject of modification, depending on the changing conditions affecting the ability of the obligor to pay the amount fixed for support

Chua vs. CA

G.R. No. 79021 May 17, 1993

ROMEO S. CHUA, petitioner,
vs.
THE HON. COURT OF APPEALS, DENNIS CANOY AND ALEX DE LEON, respondents.

Facts:

Judge Francisco issued a search warrant directing the immediate search of the premised of R.R Construction and the seizure of an Isuzu dump truck. Respondent Canoy seized the vehicle and took custody of it.

a civil action for Replevin/Sum of Money for the recovery of possession of the same Isuzu dump truck was filed by petitioner against respondent Canoy and one "John Doe" in the Regional Trial Court presided by Judge Leonardo B. Cañares

Judge Cañares directed the issuance of a writ of replevin upon the posting of a bond in the amount of P100,000.00. The writ of replevin was also issued on the same date, and the subject vehicle was seized by Deputy Sheriff Galicano V. Fuentes.

Respondent Canoy filed a motion for the dismissal of the complaint and for the quashal of the writ of replevin. The motion was opposed by petitioner. The motion to dismiss and to quash the writ of replevin was denied.

Issue: WON replevin applies to custodia legis?

Held:

It is a basic tenet of civil procedure that replevin will not lie for property in custodia legis. A thing is in custodia legis when it is shown that it has been and is subjected to the official custody of a judicial executive officer in pursuance of his execution of a legal writ. The reason posited for this principle is that if it was otherwise, there would be interference with the possession before the function of the law had been performed as to the process under which the property was taken. Thus, a defendant in an execution or attachment cannot replevy goods in the possession of an officer under a valid process, although after the levy is discharged, an action to recover possession will lie

Tantano vs. Espina-Caboverde

G.R. No. 203585               July 29, 2013

MILA CABOVERDE TANTANO and ROSELLER CABOVERDE, Petitioners,
vs.
DOMINALDA ESPINA-CABOVERDE, EVE CABOVERDE-YU, FE CABOVERDE-LABRADOR, and JOSEPHINE E. CABOVERDE, Respondents.

Facts:

Petitioners files a complaint of annulment of the Deed of Sale purportedly transferring lots from their parents Maximo and Dominalda. During the pendency of the case the parties executed a Partial Settlement Agreement (PSA) where they fixed the sharing of the uncontroverted properties among themselves, in particular, the adverted additional eight (8) parcels of land including their respective products and improvements. Under the PSA, Dominalda’s daughter, Josephine, shall be appointed as Administrator. The PSA provided that Dominalda shall be entitled to receive a share of one-half (1/2) of the net income derived from the uncontroverted properties. The PSA also provided that Josephine shall have special authority, among others, to provide for the medicine of her mother.

Both Annabelle Saldia and Jesus Tan then took their respective oaths of office and filed a motion to fix and approve bond which was approved by the trial court over petitioners’ opposition.

Petitioners harp on the fact that the court a quo failed to require Dominalda to post a bond prior to the issuance of the order appointing a receiver, in violation of Section 2, Rule 59 of the Rules of court

Respondents insist that where there is sufficient cause to appoint a receiver, there is no need for an applicant’s bond because under Sec. 2 of Rule 59, the very purpose of the bond is to answer for all damages that may be sustained by a party by reason of the appointment of a receiver in case the applicant shall have procured such appointment without sufficient cause.

Issue:

WON posting bond is required in receivership?

Held:

Sec. 2 of Rule 59 is very clear in that before issuing the order appointing a receiver the court shall require the applicant to file a bond executed to the party against whom the application is presented. The use of the word "shall" denotes its mandatory nature; thus, the consent of the other party, or as in this case, the consent of petitioners, is of no moment. Hence, the filing of an applicant’s bond is required at all times. On the other hand, the requirement of a receiver’s bond rests upon the discretion of the court. Sec. 2 of Rule 59 clearly states that the court may, in its discretion, at any time after the appointment, require an additional bond as further security for such damages.

Toyota vs. CA

[G.R. No. 126321. October 23, 1997]
TOYOTA CUBAO, INC., petitioner, vs. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS and DANILO A. GUEVARRA, respondents.

Petitioner Toyota Cubao, Inc., undertook repairs on the car owned by private respondent Danilo Guevarra and paid by means of Check in favor of Toyota. When presented for payment, the check was dishonored. Petitioner requested that Guevarra should make good the check.  Guevarra failed to heed the demand, petitioner filed a civil case for collection of the unpaid account.

The trial court issued the summons to Guevarra at his address thru his sister-in-law by leaving a copy of the summons and complaint but refused to sign. Respondent failed to answer of the complaint and was declared default and petitioner was allowed to present evidence ex-parte.

Respondent petition the CA for the nullification of the ex-parte judgement and claimed that the trial court did not acquire jurisdiction over his person because of a defective service of summons on him.

Issue:
 WON the court failed to acquire jurisdiction over the person of the defendant by failure to serve summon in his person.

Held:
The Court sustains the Court of Appeals.

Section 7, Rule 14, of the Rules of Court requires that summons must be served personally by "handing a copy thereof to the defendant in person or, if he refuses to receive it, by tendering it to him." If, however, this mode of service cannot be effected within a reasonable time, substituted service may be resorted to under Section 8 of the same Rule. A law prescribing the manner in which the service of summons should be effected is jurisdictional in character and its proper observance is what dictates the court's ability to take cognizance of the litigation before it. Compliance therewith must appear affirmatively in the return. It must so be as substitute service is a mode that departs or deviates from the standard rule. Substitute service must be used only in the way prescribed, and under circumstances authorized, by law.

In Mapa vs. Court of Appeals, the SC say that the absence in the sheriffs return of a statement about the impossibility of personal service does not conclusively prove that the service is invalid. Proof of prior attempts at personal service may be submitted by the plaintiff during the hearing of any incident assailing the validity of the substituted service. While the sheriffs return carries with it the presumption, albeit disputable, of regularity in the sense that inter alia, the entries therein are deemed correct, it does not necessarily follow that an act done in relation to the official duty for which the return is made was not done simply because it is not disclosed therein.

The SC, however, has elucidated that evidence must in such a case be duly presented that would prove proper compliance with the rules on substituted service. Hence -
The private respondent failed to present evidence during the hearings of the petitioners separate motions to dismiss and set aside judgment to prove that substituted service of summons was indeed effected in strict compliance with Section 8, Rule 14 of the Rules of Court. During such hearings, the private respondent could also have presented evidence to show that the petitioner did in fact receive from Susan O. dela Torre the summonses, together with copies of the complaints, in both cases. If indeed the petitioner received the same, the requirement of due process would have been complied with.

And, in Keister vs. Navarro, the Court said:
Service of summons upon the defendant is the means by which the court may acquire jurisdiction over his person. In the absence of a valid waiver, trial and judgment without such service are null and void. Its purpose is not only to give the court jurisdiction of the person of the defendant, but also to afford the latter an opportunity to be heard on the claim made against him.

The summons must be served to the defendant in person.  It is only when the defendant cannot be served personally within a reasonable time that a substituted service may be made.  Impossibility of prompt service should be shown by stating the efforts made to find the defendant personally and the fact that such efforts failed. This statement should be made in the proof of service.  This is necessary because substituted service is in derogation of the usual method of service. It has been held that this method of service is `in derogation of the common law; it is a method extraordinary in character, and hence may be used only as prescribed and in the circumstances authorized by statute.  Thus, under the controlling decisions, the statutory requirements of substituted service must be followed strictly, faithfully and fully, and any substituted service other than that authorized by the statute is considered ineffective.

Indeed, the constitutional requirement of due process requires that the service be such as may be reasonably expected to give the desired notice to the party of the claim against him. 
It is not here disputed that substituted service of summons has been resorted to by the process server but that, unfortunately, the server's return did not state the facts or the needed particulars that could justify the substituted service. The constitutional requirement of due process, this Court has held in Boticano vs. Chu, Jr., exacts that the service of summons be such as may reasonably be expected to give the notice desired. Once the service provided by the rules accomplishes that end, "the requirement of justice is answered; the traditional notions of fair play are satisfied; due process is served. Although Moran, on the Rules of Court, has said that Irregularities of this kind substituted service might be cured by proof that the copies have actually been delivered to the defendant," in the case at bar, however, private respondent appears to have been notified of the case for the first time only at the time the levy on execution of judgment was effected by the sheriff.

The fact of the matter was that Guevarra evidently had been unaware of the proceedings before the RTC. Upon learning of the adverse decision, but already too late in the day for him to get relief from that court, he filed, instead, a certiorari petition before the Court of Appeals. The appellate court neither abused its discretion nor was in error when it refused to consider the affidavit of the process server which was presented to it for the first time only as an annex to its Reply filed with the tribunal. For the appellate court to have accepted the affidavit favorably on its face value, without hearing, would have again been a denial to the private respondent of his right to due process.

Chua vs. Torres

G.R. No. 151900, August 30, 2005,

 CHRISTINE CHUA, Petitioner

- versus -

JORGE TORRES and ANTONIO BELTRAN, Respondents. 

A complaint for damages was lodged before the Regional Trial Court. The complaint was filed by Christine Chua impleading her brother Jonathan Chua as a necessary co-plaintiff. Named as defendants in the suit were herein respondents Jorge Torres and Antonio Beltran.

Significantly, while Jonathan Chua was named as a plaintiff to the suit, it was explicitly qualified in the second paragraph of the complaint that he was being impleaded here-in as a necessary party-plaintiff. There was no allegation in the complaint of any damage or injury sustained by Jonathan, and the prayer therein expressly named petitioner as the only party to whom respondents were sought to recompense. Neither did Jonathan Chua sign any verification or certification against forum-shopping, although petitioner did sign an attestation, wherein she identified herself as the principal plaintiff.

Upon motion of respondents, the RTC ordered the dismissal of the complaint on the ground that Jonathan Chua had not executed a certification against forum-shopping stressing Section 5, Rule 7 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

Issue: whether the absence of the signature in the required verification and certification against forum-shopping of a party misjoined as a plaintiff is a valid ground for the dismissal of the complaint.

Held:

The SC ruled that it is not so, and that the RTC erred in dismissing the instant complaint. There is no judicial precedent affirming or rejecting such a view, but we are comfortable with making such a pronouncement. A misjoined party plaintiff has no business participating in the case as a plaintiff in the first place, and it would make little sense to require the misjoined party in complying with all the requirements expected of plaintiffs.

At the same time, Section 11, Rule 3 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure states:

Neither misjoinder nor non-joinder of parties is ground for dismissal of an action. Parties may be dropped or added by order of the court on motion of any party or on its own initiative at any stage of the action and on such terms as are just. Any claim against a misjoined party may be severed and proceeded with separately.

Clearly, misjoinder of parties is not fatal to the complaint. The rule prohibits dismissal of a suit on the ground of non-joinder or misjoinder of parties. Moreover, the dropping of misjoined parties from the complaint may be done motu proprio by the court, at any stage, without need for a motion to such effect from the adverse party. Section 11, Rule 3 indicates that the misjoinder of parties, while erroneous, may be corrected with ease through amendment, without further hindrance to the prosecution of the suit.

It should then follow that any act or omission committed by a misjoined party plaintiff should not be cause for impediment to the prosecution of the case, much less for the dismissal of the suit. After all, such party should not have been included in the first place, and no efficacy should be accorded to whatever act or omission of the party. Since the misjoined party plaintiff receives no recognition from the court as either an indispensable or necessary party-plaintiff, it then follows that whatever action or inaction the misjoined party may take on the verification or certification against forum-shopping is inconsequential. Hence, it should not have mattered to the RTC that Jonathan Chua had failed to sign the certification against forum-shopping, since he was misjoined as a plaintiff in the first place. The fact that Jonathan was misjoined is clear on the face of the complaint itself, and the error of the RTC in dismissing the complaint is not obviated by the fact that the adverse party failed to raise this point. After all, the RTC could have motu proprio dropped Jonathan as a plaintiff, for the reasons above-stated which should have been evident to it upon examination of the complaint.

Sps. Perez vs. Hermano

G.R. No. 147417, July 8, 2005,

SPS. VICTOR & MILAGROS PEREZ and CRISTINA AGRAVIADOR AVISO, Petitioners,

 - versus -

ANTONIO HERMANO, R e s p o n d e n t.

Petitioners Cristina Agraviador Aviso and spouses Victor and Milagros Perez filed a civil case for Enforcement of Contract and Damages with Prayer for the Issuance of a TRO and/or Preliminary Injunction against Zescon Land, Inc. and/or its President Zenie Sales-Contreras, Atty. Perlita Vitan-Ele and against respondent herein Antonio Hermano. Respondent (then defendant) Hermano filed his Answer with Compulsory Counterclaim simultaneously filed a Motion with Leave to Dismiss the Complaint or Ordered Severed for Separate Trial which was granted by the trial court.

Petitioners moved for reconsideration which was denied by the trial court. Petitioners assert that respondent Hermano should not have been dismissed from the complaint because: (1) He did not file a motion to dismiss under Rule 16 of the Rules of Court and, in fact, his Motion with Leave to Dismiss the Complaint or Ordered Severed for Separate Trial was filed almost two years after he filed his Answer to the complaint; (2) There was no misjoinder of causes of action in this case; and (3) There was no misjoinder of parties.

Defendant having filed a special civil action for judicial foreclosure of mortgage and now pending before RTC, he should be dropped as one of the defendants in this case and whatever claims plaintiffs may have against defendant Hermano, they can set it up by way of an answer to said judicial foreclosure.

Issue: whether or not the public respondent had plainly and manifestly acted with grave abuse of discretion, in excess of jurisdiction, tantamount to lack of jurisdiction, in dismissing the complaint as against respondent Antonio Hermano in civil case.

Held: As far as we can glean from the Orders of the trial court, respondent Hermano was dropped from the complaint on the ground of misjoinder of causes of action. Petitioners, on the other hand, insist that there was no misjoinder in this case.

 To better understand the present controversy, it is vital to revisit the rules on joinder of causes of action as exhaustively discussed in Republic v. Hernandez, thus:

By a joinder of actions, or more properly, a joinder of causes of action, is meant the uniting of two or more demands or rights of action in one action; the statement of more than one cause of action in a declaration. It is the union of two or more civil causes of action, each of which could be made the basis of a separate suit, in the same complaint, declaration or petition. A plaintiff may under certain circumstances join several distinct demands, controversies or rights of action in one declaration, complaint or petition.

As can easily be inferred from the above definitions, a party is generally not required to join in one suit several distinct causes of action. The joinder of separate causes of action, where allowable, is permissive and not mandatory in the absence of a contrary statutory provision, even though the causes of action arose from the same factual setting and might under applicable joinder rules be joined. Modern statutes and rules governing joinders are intended to avoid a multiplicity of suits and to promote the efficient administration of justice wherever this may be done without prejudice to the rights of the litigants. To achieve these ends, they are liberally construed.

While joinder of causes of action is largely left to the option of a party litigant, Section 5, Rule 2 of our present Rules allows causes of action to be joined in one complaint conditioned upon the following requisites: (a) it will not violate the rules on jurisdiction, venue and joinder of parties; and (b) the causes of action arise out of the same contract, transaction or relation between the parties, or are for demands for money or are of the same nature and character.

The objectives of the rule or provision are to avoid a multiplicity of suits where the same parties and subject matter are to be dealt with by effecting in one action a complete determination of all matters in controversy and litigation between the parties involving one subject matter, and to expedite the disposition of litigation at minimum cost. The provision should be construed so as to avoid such multiplicity, where possible, without prejudice to the rights of the litigants. Being of a remedial nature, the provision should be liberally construed, to the end that related controversies between the same parties may be adjudicated at one time; and it should be made effectual as far as practicable, with the end in view of promoting the efficient administration of justice.

The statutory intent behind the provisions on joinder of causes of action is to encourage joinder of actions which could reasonably be said to involve kindred rights and wrongs, although the courts have not succeeded in giving a standard definition of the terms used or in developing a rule of universal application. The dominant idea is to permit joinder of causes of action, legal or equitable, where there is some substantial unity between them. While the rule allows a plaintiff to join as many separate claims as he may have, there should nevertheless be some unity in the problem presented and a common question of law and fact involved, subject always to the restriction thereon regarding jurisdiction, venue and joinder of parties. Unlimited joinder is not authorized.

Our rule on permissive joinder of causes of action, with the proviso subjecting it to the correlative rules on jurisdiction, venue and joinder of parties and requiring a conceptual unity in the problems presented, effectively disallows unlimited joinder.

Section 6, Rule 2 on misjoinder of causes of action provides:

Sec. 6. Misjoinder of causes of action. - Misjoinder of causes of action is not a ground for dismissal of an action. A misjoined cause of action may, on motion of a party or on the initiative of the court, be severed and proceeded with separately.

There is misjoinder of causes of action when the conditions for joinder under Section 5, Rule 2 are not met. Section 5 provides:

Sec. 5. Joinder of causes of action. - A party may in one pleading assert, in the alternative or otherwise, as many causes of action as he may have against an opposing party, subject to the following conditions:

(a) The party joining the causes of action shall comply with the rules on joinder of parties;

(b) The joinder shall not include special civil actions or actions governed by special rules;

(c) Where the causes of action are between the same parties but pertain to different venues or jurisdictions, the joinder may be allowed in the Regional Trial Court provided one of the causes of action falls within the jurisdiction of said court and the venue lies therein; and

(d) Where the claims in all the causes of action are principally for recovery of money, the aggregate amount claimed shall be the test of jurisdiction.

As far as can be gathered from the assailed Orders, it is the first condition - on joinder of parties - that the trial court deemed to be lacking. It is well to remember that the joinder of causes of action may involve the same parties or different parties. If the joinder involves different parties, as in this case, there must be a question of fact or of law common to both parties joined, arising out of the same transaction or series of transaction.

In herein case, petitioners have adequately alleged in their complaint that after they had already agreed to enter into a contract to sell with Zescon Land, Inc., through Sales-Contreras, the latter also gave them other documents to sign, to wit: A Deed of Absolute Sale over the same properties but for a lower consideration, two mortgage deeds over the same properties in favor of respondent Hermano with accompanying notes and acknowledgment receipts for P10,000,000 each. Petitioners claim that Zescon Land, Inc., through Sales-Contreras, misled them to mortgage their properties which they had already agreed to sell to the latter.

The joinder of causes of action should be liberally construed as to effect in one action a complete determination of all matters in controversy involving one subject matter, we hold that the trial court committed grave abuse of discretion in severing from the complaint petitioners cause of action against respondent Hermano.