[ G. R. No. L-5858. June 30, 1953 ] 93 Phil. 427
[ G. R. No. L-5858. June 30, 1953 ]
FILOMENA JUZON DE PO AND ANTONIO PO, PETITIONERS, VS. SEGUNDO C. MOSCOSO, JUDGE OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF TACLOBAN, LEYTE, VICENTE MATE, SHERIFF EX-OFFICIO OF LEYTE, AND EUGENIO NIERRAS, RESPONDENTS. D E C I S I O N
MONTEMAYOR, J.:
This is a petition for a writ of certiorari with preliminary injunction. From the numerous and not very clear allegations and statements in the petition and those of the annexes or exhibits attached to it, including the transcript of the notes taken before respondent Judge Moscoso during a hearing held before him, we can make out the following facts. Petitioner Filomena Juzon de Po, married to a Chinese citizen, was the owner of a parcel of registered land with an area of about 151 hectares in the municipality of Calubian, Province of Leyte, covered by transfer certificate of title No. T-320, including a house on it, where petitioner and her family live. On August 23, 1949, Filomena executed a document purporting to sell and convey said land and house to Jose Q. Enage for the sum of P10,000. According to petitioner Filomena she was given to understand that far from being an absolute sale, it was only a mortgage to guarantee the payment of a loan of P10,000 which loan as a matter of fact was not given to her in full because Enage gave her only P6,000, at the same time promising to pay her debt, in the form of crop loan, to the Philippine National Bank, plus interest. It is a fact that Enage never took possession of the land and house and so Filomena and her family continued in the continuous enjoyment thereof. On September 11, 1950, Enage sold the property with pacto de retro to Dra. Macrina Leyson. Part of the sales price was used to pay off Filomena’s crop loan from the bank, but not completely, because according to the statement of the bank, Filomena thereafter still owed it about Pl,500. Enage later redeemed the land from the buyer Macrina Leyson. Then on September 5, 1951, Enage sold the same property to his co-respondent Eugenio Nierras who registered the deed of sale and had the transfer certificate of title No. T-320 cancelled and in lieu thereof obtained transfer certificate of title No. T-683 in his name. On October 21, 1951, Filomena filed an action in the Court of First Instance of Leyte (Civil Case No. 906) against Enage asking for the annulment and cancellation of the supposed deed of sale of the land by her in his favor, claiming that as already stated, it was a mere deed of mortgage. As soon as Filomena was informed of the registration of the sale of the land to Nierras in the office of the register of deeds, she amended her complaint so as to include Nierras as party-defendant and also so as to annul the said deed of sale in Nierras’ favor. The amendment was made on December 12, 1951. Four days later and because Filomena refused to accede to the demand of Nierras that she vacate the land and give it to him, Nierras filed civil case No. 6 in the Justice of the Peace Court of Calubian for unlawful detainer, claiming that as vendee he was entitled to the possession. of the land, and that Filomena was unlawfully detaining it. Filomena before and during the trial questioned the jurisdiction of the justice of the peace court saying that the title to the property was involved and that said title will have to be decided before the question of possession could be determined. She presented evidence to the effect that neither Enage nor Nierras had ever taken possession of the land or the house on it, which possession had always remained with her; that before this detainer case was filed against her, she had already filed civil case No. 906 in the Court of First Instance of Leyte, questioning the validity of the supposed conveyance of the same land to Enage, which case will vitally affect the subsequent sale of the property to Nierras, and naturally, his right to possess the land. Her challenge of the jurisdiction of the justice of the peace court was overruled, and after hearing, judgment was rendered by the said court in favor of Nierras and against Filomena, sentencing the latter to deliver to Nierras the land in litigation and to pay the amount of P1,600 as damages. Filomena appealed to the Court of First Instance of Leyte (Civil Case No. 1492) but forgot to file a supersedeas bond. On April 2, 1952, appellee Nierras filed a motion in the court of first instance for execution of the judgment based on the failure of Filomena to file a supersedeas bond. Filomena offered to post the necessary supersedeas bond but the respondent judge of court of first instance denied the offer and granted the motion for execution by order of May 26, 1952. Hence, this present petition for certiorari with a request that a writ of preliminary injunction be issued to restrain the respondent judge and the sheriff from executing the judgment of the justice of the peace court in the detainer case. By resolution of this tribunal, the writ of preliminary injunction prayed for was granted, petitioner having filed a surety bond of P300 we required of her. The determination of the present petition hinges on the jurisdiction of the justice of the peace court to entertain and decide the unlawful detainer case in view of the challenge made of its jurisdiction because of the pendency of civil case No. 906 in the court of first instance, involving title to the property whose possession was litigated in the detainer case. If the justice of the peace court had no jurisdiction then the court of first instance had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal because all the proceedings in the justice of the peace court were null and void. In that case, having no appellate jurisdiction, the respondent judge had no authority to issue the writ of execution. There have been quite a number of cases decided by this court as to when a justice of the peace court before which an action for forcible entry or unlawful detainer is filed loses jurisdiction. Almost all, if not all these cases, center on and are based on the doctrine laid down in the leading case of Supia vs. Quintero (59 Phil., 312) where this court after reviewing Philippine and American cases on the subject, laid down the rule that in an action of forcible entry or unlawful detainer in the justice of the peace court, a mere filing of an answer claiming title to the property involved will not divest said court of jurisdiction; but if during the trial it should appear that the action is not in fact for the recovery of the possession of the property but to determine a question of title, then the court loses jurisdiction and the case must be dismissed. This doctrine has in subsequent cases been elaborated upon but without changing the substance or the basic rule. It has been said that if to decide a case of unlawful detainer it is necessary to determine title to the property, then the justice of the peace court has no jurisdiction; but,to deprive said court of jurisdiction, mere claim of title on the part of the defendant may not be allowed to deprive the court of jurisdiction to decide the case, but when it is shown that said claim to title is not frivolous and not intended merely to suspend court proceedings and block the action of the plaintiff but on the contrary is meritorious and that the defendant has made out a prima facie case of her title to the land and her right to continue possessing it, then the case must be dismissed.
“On the other hand, while as a general rule a mere allegation by defendant claiming ownership of the property does not and cannot divest the court of its jurisdiction, yet if it appears during the trial that, by the nature of the proof presented, the question of possession cannot properly be determined without settling that of ownership, then the jurisdiction of the court is lost and the action should be dismissed. For instance, when the proof of possession of plaintiff is predicated upon a deed of sale alleged to have been executed by the defendant, who in turn alleges said document to be fictitious and fraudulent, and there are no circumstances showing that this claim of defendant is unfounded, then the justice of the peace court loses its jurisdiction.” (Moran, Comments on the Rules of Court, Vol. II, 1952 Ed., p. 299).
In the course of the discussion of this case, an observation was made and some doubt was expressed as to the propriety of the remedy sought by the petitioners, namely, certiorari with preliminary injunction, it being insinuated that the proper remedy should be appeal; and it is also claimed that where the appellant in an unlawful detainer case fails to file a supersede as bond, as what happened in this case, it is the ministerial duty of the appellate court to issue a writ of execution of the judgment of the justice of the peace court on motion of the appellee, and that this tribunal should not and may not interfere with that duty of the lower court before which an unlawful detainer case is pending on appeal. In explanation and in an answer it may be stated that an order for the issuance of a writ of execution in a detainer case is interlocutory in character and is not appealable, and we can hardly expect an appellant in long and continued peaceful possession of her land and occupancy of her house thereon, threatened with summary ejection by means of a writ of execution to calmly submit to said forcible measure and patiently wait for the termination of the trial and rendition of judgment and then appeal to a higher court. Besides, there is no point or necessity in expelling a party from his house and from the land and its improvements including perchance standing crops, on the strength of a writ of execution which derives its force and authority from judicial proceedings and judgment of a justice of the peace court which may later be declared null and void for want of jurisdiction. It is highly possible that the main concern of petitioner Filomena was the summary, impending loss of her property because of the writ of execution hanging over her head, and that was the main motive for the filing of this petition for certiorari with preliminary injunction based on lack of jurisdiction of the justice of the peace court as well as the court of first instance which ordered the issuance of the writ of execution. Anyway, this is not the first time that we have accepted and decided petitions for certiorari with preliminary injunction based on lack of jurisdiction of a court of first instance to entertain an appeal from a judgment of the justice of the peace court in forcible entry and detainer case. In the cases of Torres vs. Peña (78 Phil. 231), and Peñalosa vs. Garcia, (78 Phil. 245), we not only entertained similar cases but we also revoked orders for the issuance of a writ of execution based on non-payment of rentals pending appeal, after we found and decided that the court of first instance issuing the writ had no appellate jurisdiction because the justice of the peace court had no jurisdiction to decide the case of forcible entry and detainer because title to the property was involved. Filomena in challenging the jurisdiction of the justice of the peace court presented evidence in said court to show that the question of possession could not be decided without first deciding the question of title. This can be gleaned from the very decision of the justice of the peace court. Without anticipating the determination of civil case No. 906 pending in the court of first instance filed by Filomena against Enage and against Nierras, we are satisfied that she has made out a prima facie case and established a meritorious claim that the unlawful detainer case filed against her involves the title to the land which title must first be decided before plaintiff Nierras could eject her from the land and from the house thereon where she and her family live. According to the evidence presented in the justice of the peace court and recited in the decision of said justice of the peace court, the land and house were purportedly sold by Filomena to Enage in 1949. He never took possession of either. In 1950 Enage sold the land under pacto de retro to one Macrina Leyson. Neither did Macrina take possession of the land or the house. Enage redeemed the land from Macrina and in September, 1951, allegedly sold it to Eugenio Nierras and it was only in said year that she was asked to vacate the land. Before Nierras brought the action for unlawful detainer against her she had already filed civil case No. 906 in the court of first instance against Enage to annul the supposed sale made by her in favor of Enage, and when she found out that Enage had sold the land to Nierras, she amended her complaint in order to include Nierras as co-defendant. There is, therefore, no room for suspicion that she filed said civil case No. 906 only as an afterthought and as an excuse or reason for questioning the jurisdiction of the justice of the peace court. Nierras never had possession of the property; neither had his vendor Enage. According to the petition of Filomena the land in question is registered with torrens title and has a house on it. It has an extension of over 151 hectares, and for taxation purposes it is assessed at P35,000; and yet she was supposed to have sold it for only P10,000 to Enage. That, is why she claims that the transaction between her and Enage was a mere mortgage to obtain funds to pay off her debt with the Philippine National Bank, and that Enage had no title to convey to Nierras. In conclusion, we find and hold that in challenging the jurisdiction of the justice of the peace court to entertain and decide the unlawful detainer case against her, petitioner Filomena has presented evidence to make out a prima facie case and a meritorious claim that the question of possession of the property in question could not be decided without first determining title to the same; consequently, the justice of the peace court was divested of jurisdiction and should have dismissed the case. It follows that the court of first instance had no appellate jurisdiction, and consequently, respondent judge was without authority to issue the writ of execution because of the failure of Filomena to file a supersedeas bond. As a matter of fact, when we first gave due course to this petition and before the case was heard, we granted the petition for the issuance of the writ of preliminary injunction and issued the same upon the filing of the required surety bond. The petition is hereby granted and the writ of preliminary injunction heretofore issued, is hereby made permanent. The question of title to the property in litigation which should precede that of possession may well be ventilated and decided in civil case No. 906 now pending in the court of first instance. Respondent Nierras will pay costs. Paras, C. J., Pablo, Bengzon, Bautista Angelo and Labrador, JJ., concur.