Pinausukan Seafood House, Roxas Boulevard, Inc. vs. Far East Bank & Trust Company, now Bank of the Philippine Islands and Hector I. Galura
G.R. No. 159926
Jan. 20, 2014
First Division
Ponente: Bersamin, J.
Gist:
Extrinsic fraud, as a ground for the annulment of a judgment, must emanate from an act of the adverse party, and the fraud must be of such nature as to have deprived the petitioner of its day in court. The fraud is not extrinsic if the act was committed by the petitioner’s own counsel.
Facts:
Bonier de Guzman (Bonier), then the President of petitioner corporation (Pinausukan), executed four real estate mortgages (REM) involving the petitioner’s 517 sqm. parcel of land situated in Pasay City in favor of Far East Bank and Trust Company (now BPI). The parcel of land was registered under the name of Pinausukan. When the loan obligation became unpaid, the Bank commenced proceedings for the extrajudicial foreclosure of the mortgages which resulted to the Sheriff of RTC-Pasay to issue a notice of sheriff’s sale, setting the public auction at the main entrance of the Hall of Justice in Pasay City.
Upon learning of the impending sale of the mortgaged property, Pinausukan brought against the Bank and the sheriff an action for the annulment of the REM in the RTC, averring that Bonier had obtained the loans only in his personal capacity and had constituted the mortgages on the corporate assets without Pinausukan’s consent through a board resolution.
As the counsels of the parties did not appear in the hearings as scheduled, the RTC dismissed the case for failure to prosecute. The order of dismissal attained finality.
The sheriff then issued a notice of extrajudicial sale concerning the mortgaged property which was received by Pinausukan.
Claiming surprise over the turn of events, Pinausukan inquired from the RTC and learned that Atty. Villaflor, its counsel of record, had not informed it about the order of dismissal which attained finality.
Pinausukan then brought the petition for annulment in the CA seeking the nullification of the RTC Order which dismissed the case. Its petition stated that its counsel had been guilty of gross and palpable negligence in failing to keep track of the case he was handling, and in failing to apprise Pinausukan of the developments on the case. It further averred that the palpable negligence of its counsel to keep track of the case he was handling constituted professional misconduct amounting to extrinsic fraud.
The CA dismissed the petition for annulment, citing the failure to attach the affidavits of witnesses attesting to and describing the alleged extrinsic fraud supporting the cause of action as required by Section 4, Rule 47; and observing that the verified petition related only to the correctness of its allegations, a requirement entirely different and separate from the affidavits of witnesses required under Rule 47 of the Rules of Court. The appellate court denied Pinausukan’s motion for reconsideration.
Issue:
Pinausukan posits that the requirement for attaching the affidavits of witnesses to the petition for annulment should be relaxed; that even if Roxanne had executed the required affidavit as a witness on the extrinsic fraud, she would only repeat therein the allegations already in the petition, thereby duplicating her allegations under her oath; that the negligence of Atty. Villaflor, in whom it entirely relied upon, should not preclude it from obtaining relief, and that it needed a chance to prove in the RTC that Bonier had no right to mortgage its property.
Ruling:
The appeal lacks merit.
1. Nature and statutory requirements for an action to annul a judgment or final order
In 1981, the Legislature enacted BP 129 (Judiciary Reorganization Act of 1980) which formally established the annulment of a judgment or final order as an action independent from the generic classification of litigations in which the subject matter was not capable of pecuniary estimation, and expressly vested the exclusive original jurisdiction over such action in the CA. The action in which the subject of the litigation was incapable of pecuniary estimation continued to be under the exclusive original jurisdiction of the RTC.
Since then, the RTC no longer had jurisdiction over an action to annul the judgment of the RTC, eliminating all concerns about judicial stability. To implement this change, the Court introduced a new procedure to govern the action to annul the judgment of the RTC in the 1997 revision of the Rules of Court under Rule 47, directing in Section 2 thereof that “the annulment may be based only on the grounds of extrinsic fraud and lack of jurisdiction”.
In Dare Adventure Farm Corporation vs. CA, the Court expounded on the nature of the remedy of annulment of judgment or final order, viz:
A petition for annulment of judgment is a remedy in equity so exceptional in nature that it may be availed of only when other remedies are wanting, and only if the judgment, final order or final resolution sought to be annulled was rendered by a court lacking jurisdiction or through extrinsic fraud. The Court has instituted safeguards by limiting the grounds for the annulment to lack of jurisdiction and extrinsic fraud, and by prescribing in Section 1 of Rule 47 of the Rules of Court, that the petitioner should show that the ordinary remedies of new trial, appeal, petition for relief or other appropriate remedies are no longer available through no fault of the petitioner. A petition for annulment that ignores or disregards any of the safeguards cannot prosper.
The doctrine of immutability and unalterability of judgments serves a two-fold purpose, namely: (a) to avoid delay in the administration of justice and thus, procedurally, to make orderly the discharge of judicial business; and (b) to put an end to judicial controversies, at the risk of occasional errors, which is precisely why the courts exist.
As to the first, a judgment that has acquired finality becomes immutable and unalterable and is no longer to be modified in any respect even if the modification is meant to correct an erroneous conclusion of fact or of law, and whether the modification is made by the court that rendered the decision or by the highest court of the land. As to the latter, controversies cannot drag on indefinitely because fundamental considerations of public policy and sound practice demand that the rights and obligations of every litigant must not hand in suspense for an indefinite period of time.
The objective of the remedy of annulment of judgment or final order is to undo or set aside the judgment or final order, and thereby grant to the petitioner an opportunity to prosecute his cause or to ventilate his defense.
If the ground relied upon is lack of jurisdiction, the entire proceedings are set aside without prejudice to the original action being refiled in the proper court.
If the judgment or final order or resolution is set aside on the ground of extrinsic fraud, the CA may on motion order the trial court to try the case as if a timely motion for new trial had been granted therein. The remedy is by no means an appeal whereby the correctness of the assailed judgment or final order is in issue; hence, the CA is not called upon to address each error allegedly committed by the trial court.
The following statutory requirements for the remedy as set forth in Rule 47 of the Rules of Court are discussed.
The first requirement prescribes that the remedy is available only when the petitioner can no longer resort to the ordinary remedies of new trial, appeal, petition for relief or other appropriate remedies through no fault of the petitioner. This means that the remedy is not an alternative to the ordinary remedies of new trial, appeal, and petition for relief. The petition must aver, therefore, that the petitioner failed to move for a new trial, or to appeal, or to file a petition for relief without fault on his part. But this requirement to aver is not imposed when the ground of the petition is lack of jurisdiction as the judgment or final order becomes void unless the ground of lack of jurisdiction is barred by laches.
The second requirement limits the ground for the action of annulment of judgment to either extrinsic fraud or lack of jurisdiction.
Only extrinsic fraud justifies the action of annulment of judgment. According to Cosmic Lumber Corporation vs. CA, fraud is extrinsic where the unsuccessful party has been prevented from exhibiting fully his case, by fraud or deception practiced on him by his opponent, as by keeping him away from court, a false promise of a compromise or where the defendant never had knowledge of the suit, being kept in ignorance by the acts of the plaintiff, or where an attorney fraudulently or without authority connives at his defeat.; these and similar cases which show that there has never been a real contest in the trial or hearing of the case are reasons for which a new suit may be sustained to set aside and annul the former judgment and open the case for a new and fair hearing.
The overriding consideration when extrinsic fraud is alleged is that the fraudulent scheme of the prevailing litigant prevented the petitioner from having his day in court. On the other hand, intrinsic fraud does not deprive the petitioner of his day in court because he can guard against that fraud through employment of other means.
Lack of jurisdiction on the part of the trial court in rendering the judgment or final order is either lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter or lack of jurisdiction over the person of the petitioner. A judgment or final order issued by the trial court without jurisdiction over the subject matter is always void. But the defect of lack of jurisdiction over the person may be waived by the party concerned either expressly or impliedly.
The third requirement sets the time for the filing of the action. If based on extrinsic fraud, the action must be filed within four years from the discovery of the extrinsic fraud; and if based on lack of jurisdiction, must be brought before it is barred by laches or estoppel.
Laches is the failure or neglect for an unreasonable and unexplained length of time to do that which by exercising due diligence could not should have been done earlier; it is negligence or omission to assert a right within a reasonable time, warranting a presumption that the party entitled to assert it either has abandoned it or declined to assert it. The existence of four elements must be shown in order to validate laches as a defense, to wit: (a) conduct on the part of the defendant, or of one under whom a claim is made, giving rise to a situation for which a complaint is filed and a remedy sought; (b) delay in asserting the rights of the complainant, who has knowledge or notice of the defendant’s conduct and has been afforded an opportunity to institute a suit; (c) lack of knowledge or notice on the part of the defendant that the complainant will assert the right on which the latter has based the suit; and (d) injury or prejudice to the defendant in the event that the complainant is granted a relief or the suit is not deemed barred.
Estoppel precludes a person who has admitted or made a representation about something as true from denying or disproving it against anyone else relying on his admission or representation. This means that whenever a part has, by his own declaration, act or omission, intentionally and deliberately led another to believe a particular thing true, and to act upon such belief, he cannot, in any litigation arising out of such declaration, act or omission, be permitted to falsify it.
The fourth requirement demands that the petition should be verified, and should allege with particularity the facts and the law relied upon for annulment, as well as those supporting the petitioner’s good and substantial cause of action or defense. The need for particularity cannot be dispensed with because averring the circumstances constituting either fraud or mistake with particularity is a universal requirement in the rules of pleading.
The purpose of these requirements of the sworn verification and the particularization of the allegations of the extrinsic fraud in the petition is to forthwith bring all the relevant facts to the CA’s cognizance in order to enable the CA to determine whether or not the petition has substantial merit. Should it find prima facie merit in the petition, the CA shall give the petition due course and direct the service of summons to the respondent; otherwise, the CA has the discretion to outrightly dismiss the petition for annulment.
2. Pinausukan’s petition for annulment was substantively and procedurally defective
The procedural defect consisted in Pinausukan’s disregard of the fourth requirement mentioned earlier consisting in its failure to submit together with the petition the affidavits of witnesses or documents supporting the cause of action.
Meanwhile, the substantive defect related to the supposed neglect of Atty. Villaflor to keep track of the case, and to his failure to apprise Pinausukan of the development of the case, which the CA did not accept as constituting extrinsic fraud. The CA noted that what is involved in the case is mistake and gross negligence of petitioner’s own counsel only. Mistake and gross negligence cannot be equated to the extrinsic fraud that Rule 47 requires to be the ground for an annulment of judgment.
