This case has been cited 4 times or more.
|
2011-09-12 |
BERSAMIN, J. |
||||
| Apparently, the petitioners were guilty of splitting their single cause of action to enforce or rescind the deed of sale with assumption of mortgage. Splitting a single cause of action is the act of dividing a single or indivisible cause of action into several parts or claims and instituting two or more actions upon them.[26] A single cause of action or entire claim or demand cannot be split up or divided in order to be made the subject of two or more different actions.[27] Thus, Section 4, Rule 2 of the Rules of Court expressly prohibits splitting of a single cause of action, viz: Section 4. Splitting a single cause of action; effect of. -- If two or more suits are instituted on the basis of the same cause of action, the filing of one or a judgment upon the merits in any one is available as a ground for the dismissal of the others. (4a) | |||||
|
2007-06-26 |
GARCIA, J. |
||||
| On the matter of identity of causes of action, the Court holds that there is such identity between TBP Case No. 87-02388 and the instant case, which is the grant of the alleged behest loan. For perspective, however, a slightly different reasons are given in both cases for characterizing the subject loan as behest. The alleged "special treatment" given to PAFICO and the "questionable viability" of its soy beans processing projects are the reasons given in the first case, whereas reference to "under collateralization" and "under capitalization" is mentioned in the present case. But then, the application of the res judicata doctrine cannot be evaded by merely varying the form of the action or engaging a different method of presenting the issue.[48] Legal theories do not operate to constitute a cause of action; new legal theories do not amount to a new cause of action so as to defeat the application of the principle of res judicata.[49] | |||||
|
2006-12-06 |
CALLEJO, SR., J. |
||||
| For there to be res judicata, the following elements must be present: (1) finality of the former judgment; (2) the court which rendered it had jurisdiction over the subject matter and the parties; (3) it must be a judgment on the merits; and (4) there must be, between the first and second actions, identity of parties, subject matter and causes of action.[16] The third requisite, i.e., that the former judgment must be a judgment on the merits, is not present between the action for partition and the complaint a quo for unlawful detainer. As aptly observed by the CA:Our reading of the Orders (dated June 16, 1997 and October 13, 1997) in Civil Case No. 4917 reveals that the RTC, Branch 3, Tuguegarao, Cagayan, dismissed the complaint for partition because of the discovery of the alleged last will and testament of Isabel Cuntapay. The court did not declare respondents [referring to the petitioners herein] the owners of the disputed property. It simply ordered them to petition the court for the allowance of the will to determine the proper legitimes of the heirs prior to any partition. Instead of filing the appropriate petition for the probate of Isabel Cuntapay's will, the respondents filed the present complaint for unlawful detainer. Viewed from this perspective, we have no doubt that the court's Orders cited by the respondents are not "judgments on the merits" that would result in the application of the principle of res judicata. Where the trial court merely refrained from proceeding with the case and granted the motion to dismiss with some clarification without conducting a trial on the merits, there is no res judicata.[17] Further, it is not quite correct for petitioners to contend that the children of Isabel Cuntapay by her first marriage could not have conveyed portions of the subject lot to respondent, as she had claimed, because until the present, it is still covered by OCT Nos. 196 and 1032 under the names of Pedro and Leona Cuntapay. To recall, it was already agreed by the heirs of the said spouses in a Partition Agreement dated December 28, 1979 that the subject lot would belong to Isabel Cuntapay. The latter died leaving her six children by both marriages as heirs. Considering that her purported last will and testament has, as yet, no force and effect for not having been probated, her six children are deemed to be co-owners of the subject lot having their respective pro indiviso shares. The conveyances made by the children of Isabel Cuntapay by her first marriage of their respective pro indiviso shares in the subject lot to respondent are valid because the law recognizes the substantive right of heirs to dispose of their ideal share in the co-heirship and/co-ownership among the heirs. The Court had expounded the principle in this wise: | |||||
|
2006-10-31 |
AZCUNA, J. |
||||
| It must be emphasized that a party cannot evade or avoid the application of res judicata by simply varying the form of his action or adopting a different method of presenting his case. [19] As this Court stated in Perez v. Court of Appeals:[20] x x x the statement of a different form of liability is not a different cause of action, provided it grows out of the same transaction or act and seeks redress for the wrong. Two actions are not necessarily for different causes of action simply because the theory of the second would not have been open under the pleadings in the first. A party cannot preserve the right to bring a second action after the loss of the first merely by having circumscribed and limited theories of recovery opened by the pleadings in the first. | |||||