This case has been cited 1 times or more.
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2008-01-18 |
SANDOVAL-GUTIERREZ, J. |
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| On the first issue, the Court of Appeals (Seventh Division) is correct when it ruled that petitioners' motion for reconsideration of its Resolution dated October 29, 2001 in CA-G.R. SP No. 67068 is "non-existent." Petitioners' counsel placed a wrong case number in their motion, indicating CA-G.R. SP No. 50531 (Special Sixteenth Division) instead of CA-G.R. SP No. 50531 (Seventh Division), the correct case number. In Llantero v. Court of Appeals,[2] we ruled that where a pleading bears an erroneous docket number and thus "could not be attached to the correct case," the said pleading is, for all intents and purposes, "non-existent." As aptly stated by the Special Sixteenth Division, it has neither the duty nor the obligation to correct the error or to transfer the case to the Seventh Division. In Mega Land Resources and Development Corporation v. C-E Construction Corporation,[3] which likewise involves a wrong docket number in a motion, we ruled that the duty to correct the mistake falls solely on the party litigant whose fault caused the anomaly. To hold otherwise would be to impose upon appellate courts the burden of being nannies to appellants, ensuring the absence of pitfalls that hinder the perfection of petitions and appeals. Strictly speaking, it is a dogma that the mistake or negligence of counsel binds the clients[4] and appellate courts have no share in that burden. | |||||