381 Phil. 518
YNARES-SANTIAGO, J.:
WHEREFORE, judgment is hereby rendered finding AYALA guilty of deliberate and willful "forum-shopping" in filing aforementioned five (5) separate Civil Cases before the different RTCs; and, in view thereof, said five (5) cases (Annexes "C" to "G" of the petition) are hereby ordered dismissed with prejudice as against petitioner; and that the lower court’s Order of October 27, 1997 and the Order of January 5, 1998, for finding otherwise, are hereby SET ASIDE for being plainly contrary to law and issued in grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction.Petitioner Ayala Land, Inc. alleges that it is the registered owner of several contiguous parcels of land in Las Piñas City. When it began to develop its properties into a residential subdivision, petitioner became aware of adverse claims of ownership over the properties from several persons. Among these claimants is respondent Marietta Valisno, who asserts ownership over 1,082,959 square meters of land registered in her name under Transfer Certificate of Title No. (273301) RT-4 of the Registry of Deeds of Las Piñas, Metro Manila.[2] On the premise that portions of respondent’s claimed land overlap petitioner’s properties covered in fourteen of petitioner’s torrens titles, petitioner instituted actions to quiet its titles. Since petitioner’s entire property in Las Piñas is allegedly covered by twenty-one separate torrens titles, petitioner contends that it could have brought twenty-one distinct actions to quiet title. Upon advice of counsel, however, petitioner resolved to file only eight cases on a "per lot/per TCT (or sets thereof)" basis. Other considerations dividing or grouping together petitioner’s causes of action were the number of claimants, the sizes of the claims, the contiguity of the lots involved, the manageability of litigating its claims and the speed in the adjudication thereof. Among those eight cases, respondent was named respondent in five of them, to wit:
SO ORDERED.[1]
Respondent, on the other hand, filed with the Regional Trial Court of Las Piñas City, Branch 253, on March 6, 1997 an action against petitioner and several others, docketed as Civil Case No. LP-97-0064, wherein she claimed ownership of the 1,082,959 square meter tract of land covered by her TCT No. (273301) RT-4 and prayed that petitioner’s TCT Nos. 41263, 41262, 41325, 41326, 15644, 26878 and 41259, among others, be declared null and void.
(a) Civil Case No. 93-3685 of the Regional Trial Court of Makati City, Branch 56, filed on October 14, 1993;(b) Civil Case No. 94-467 originally of the Regional Trial Court of Makati City and transferred to the Regional Trial Court of Las Piñas City, Branch 275, filed on February 7, 1994;(c) Civil Case No. 94-468 of the Regional Trial Court of Makati City, Branch 64, filed on February 7, 1994;(d) Civil Case No. 94-1432 originally of the Regional Trial Court of Makati City and transferred to the Regional Trial Court of Las Piñas City, Branch 275, filed on April 8, 1994; and(e) Civil Case No. LP-97-0058 of the Regional Trial Court of Las Piñas City , Branch 253, filed on February 21, 1997 .
In both instances, neither Ayala Land, Inc., nor Marietta Valisno is guilty of forum shopping. The Motions to Cite either party in Contempt of Court are DENIED.Petitioner filed a Motion for Partial Reconsideration[7] while respondent filed a Motion for Reconsideration[8] of the above Order, both of which were denied by Judge Panganiban in an Order dated January 5, 1998.[9]
WHEREFORE, the Motion praying for the transfer of the records of this case to RTC of Las Piñas is DENIED. Finding that neither party is guilty of forum shopping, the two (2) Motions to Cite in Contempt are both DENIED.[6]
WHEREFORE, judgment is hereby rendered finding AYALA guilty of deliberate and willful "forum-shopping" in filing aforementioned five (5) separate Civil Cases before the different RTCs; and in view thereof, said five (5) cases (Annexes "C" to "G" of the petition) are hereby ordered dismissed with prejudice as against petitioner; and that the lower court’s Order of October 27, 1997 and the Order of January 5, 1998, for finding otherwise, are hereby SET ASIDE for being plainly contrary to law and issued in grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction.Petitioner’s Motion for Reconsideration[13] was denied by the Court of Appeals in its assailed Resolution[14] of October 13, 1998. The dispositive portion reads:
SO ORDERED.[12]
WHEREFORE, the Motion for Reconsideration is hereby DENIED. Let a copy hereof be furnished the Fifteenth Division of this Court in CA-G.R. No. 48230 but only for its information, and the Regional Trial Courts, to wit, RTC Makati, Br. 56 (in Civil Case No. 93-3685); RTC Las Piñas, Br. 64 [should be Br. 275] (in Civil Case Nos. 94-467 and 94-1432); RTC Makati, Br. 64 (in Civil Case No. 94-468); RTC, Las Piñas, Br. 253 (in Civil Case No. 97-0058), for their compliance and implementation.Petitioner, thus, brought the present petition for review relying on the following grounds:
SO ORDERED.[15]
THE COURT OF APPEALS DECIDED A QUESTION OF SUBSTANCE NOT IN ACCORD WITH THE RULES OF COURT, PRECEDENTS AND REMEDIAL LAW AUTHORITIES, WHEN IT DECLARED PETITIONER TO HAVE SHOPPED FOR A FORUM, DESPITE ITS EXPRESS FINDING THAT THE CASES FILED BY PETITIONER INVOLVED DISTINCT CAUSES OF ACTION.On March 3, 1999, this Court denied the petition for "failure to sufficiently show that the Court of Appeals had committed any reversible error in the questioned judgment to warrant the exercise by this Court of its discretionary appellate jurisdiction in this case."[17]II.
THE COURT OF APPEALS DECIDED A QUESTION OF SUBSTANCE NOT IN ACCORD WITH THE LAWS ON HUMAN RELATIONS AND APPLICABLE PRECEDENTS, WHEN IT DECLARED PETITIONER’S FILING OF CASES FOR DISTINCT CAUSES OF ACTION AS AN ABUSE OF RIGHT.III.
THE COURT OF APPEALS DISREGARDED THE RULES OF COURT AND APPLICABLE DECISIONS OF THE SUPREME COURT WHEN IT REFUSED TO HOLD RESPONDENT GUILTY OF FORUM SHOPPING IN FILING A CASE (CIVIL CASE NO. 97-0064) IN WHICH THE RELIEFS PRAYED FOR WERE ESSENTIALLY COMPULSORY COUNTERCLAIMS IN RELATION TO THE CASES FILED BY PETITIONER.IV.
THE COURT OF APPEALS DEPARTED FROM THE ACCEPTED AND USUAL COURSE OF JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS WHEN IT ORDERED THE DISMISSAL OF CASES NOT BEFORE IT.V.
AS AN ALTERNATIVE GROUND, THE COURT OF APPEALS DISREGARDED APPLICABLE PRECEDENTS AND DEPARTED FROM THE USUAL AND ACCEPTED COURSE OF JUDICIAL PRECEDENTS WHEN IT DISMISSED THE CASES FILED BY AYALA, INSTEAD OF ORDERING CONSOLIDATION.[16]
In this case, while there may be identity of parties and of some reliefs prayed for, any judgment rendered in one of the actions filed by petitioner will not amount to res judicata in the other actions. The following are the elements of res judicata:As explained by this Court in First Philippine International Bank v. Court of Appeals, forum-shopping exists where the elements of litis pendentia are present, and where a final judgment in one case will amount to res judicata in the other. Thus, there is forum-shopping when, between an action pending before this Court and another one, there exist: "a) identity of parties, or at least such parties as represent the same interests in both actions, b) identity of rights asserted and relief prayed for, the relief being founded on the same facts, and c) 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 also constitutive of the requisites for auter action pendant or lis pendens." Another case elucidates the consequence of forum-shopping: "[W]here a litigant sues the same party against whom another action or actions for the alleged violation of the same right and the enforcement of the same relief is/are still pending, the defense of litis-pendentia in one case is a bar to the others; and, a final judgment in one would constitute res judicata and thus would cause the dismissal of the rest."[21]