Facts
Sometime in 1996, Spouses Medado and the Estate of Antonio Consing, represented by Soledad Consing, executed Deeds of Sale with Assumption of Mortgage for the former’s acquisition from the latter of the property in Cadiz City. As part of the deal, Spouses Medado undertook to assume the estate’s loan with PNB. Subsequent to the sale, however, the Estate of Consing offered the subject lots to the government via the Department of Agrarian Reform’s Voluntary Offer to Sell (VOS) program.
The Estate of Consing also instituted with the RTC an action for rescission and damages against Spouses Medado, PNB and the Register of Deeds of Cadiz City, due to the alleged failure of the spouses to meet the conditions in their agreement.
In the meantime the Civil Case for rescission was pending, the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) issued in favor of the Estate of Consing a certificate of deposit of cash and agrarian reform bonds, as compensation for the lots covered by the VOS. The foregoing prompted Spouses Medado to institute an action for injunction with prayer for the issuance of a temporary restraining order.
The RTC issued an Order granting Spouses Medado’s application for the issuance of writs of preliminary prohibitory and mandatory injunction. Feeling aggrieved, the heirs of the late Antonio Consing questioned the RTC’s order via a petition for certiorari filed with the CA. They sought, among other reliefs, the dismissal of the complaint for injunction for violation of the rules on litis pendentia and forum shopping.
The CA ruled that the RTC gravely abused its discretion by taking cognizance of the civil case for an injunction while the civil case for rescission and damages was pending, as this violated the rule against forum shopping.
ISSUE: Whether or not the CA correctly held that the rule against forum shopping was violated by the filing of the complaint for an injunction during the pendency of the action for rescission and damages
Ruling
YES.
Forum shopping exists when the elements of litis pendentia concur.
There is forum shopping when the elements of litis pendentia are present, i.e., between actions pending before courts, there exist:
- identity of parties, or at least such parties as represent the same interests in both actions,
- identity of rights asserted and relief prayed for, the relief being founded on the same facts, and
- 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; said requisites are also constitutive of the requisites for auter action pendant or lis pendens.
Applying the foregoing, there was clearly a violation of the rule against forum shopping when Spouses Medado instituted Civil Case No. 797-C for injunction notwithstanding the pendency of Civil Case No. 00-11320 for rescission of contract and damages.
All elements of litis pendentia are present with the filing of the two cases. There is no dispute that there is the identity of parties representing the same interests in the two actions, both involving the estate and heirs of the late Consing on one hand and Spouses Medado on the other. The rescission case names “Soledad T. Consing, for herself and as administratrix of the estate of Antonio Consing” as the plaintiff, with “Spouses Meritus Rey and Elsa Medado, [PNB] and the Register of Deeds of Cadiz City” as respondents.
The injunction case, on the other hand, was instituted by Spouses Medado, against “(LBP) and the Heirs of the Late Antonio Consing, as represented by Dra. Soledad Consing.” The primary litigants in the two actions, and their interests, are the same.
The two other elements are likewise satisfied. There is an identity of rights asserted and reliefs prayed for in the two cases, with the reliefs being founded on the same set of facts. In both cases, the parties claim their supposed right as owners of the subject properties. They all anchor their claim of ownership on the deeds of absolute sale which they had executed, and the law applicable thereto. They assert their respective rights, with Spouses Medado as buyers and the heirs as sellers, based on the same set of facts that involve the deeds of sale’s contents and their validity. Both actions necessarily involve a ruling on the validity of the same contract as against the same parties. Thus, the identity of the two cases is such as would render the decision in the rescission case res judicata in the injunction case, and vice versa.
It does not even matter that one action is for the enforcement of the parties’ agreements, while the other action is for the rescission thereof.
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the instant petition for review on certiorari is hereby DENIED. Accordingly, the Court of Appeal’s Decision dated September 26, 2008, which reversed and set aside the order of the Regional Trial Court, Branch 60, Cadiz City, dated March 09, 2007, is perforce AFFIRMED.