Chan vs CA

Facts:

This is a petition for review on certiorari of the decision of the Court of Appeals
which reversed and set aside the decision of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of
Manila

The RTC had affirmed the decision of the Metropolitan Trial Court (MTC) of
Manila

1. Felisa Chan and Grace Cu entered into a contract of lease whereby the latter
will occupy for residential purposes Room 401 and the roof top of Room
442 owned by the former.
2. In the contracts, it was agreed that the premises shall be used as a learning
center.
3. The term of the lease is one year or up to February 1, 1984 at a monthly
rental of P2,400.00 which was renewed every year for two successive years
or up to February 1, 1986.
4. After February 1, 1986, there was no written contract of lease executed by
the parties, but Grace has continuously occupied the premises as a learning
center.The monthly rental was raised every year. In January, 1989, it was
increased to P3,484.80.
5. Sometime in November, 1989, Felisa padlocked the way to the roof top.
6. Because of the dispute between the parties, Felisa did not collect the rental
for December, 1989. Whereupon, Grace tendered to Felisa a check
amounting to P3,310.56. The latter refused to accept the check.
7. Grace filed a complaint for consignation with the Metropolitan Trial Court
of Manila, Branch 15, alleging in her complaint that Felisa refused to accept
the rentals for the premises in question.
8. Felisa interposed in her answer a counterclaim for ejectment, contending
that the lease, being month to month, had expired but that despite demand,
Grace refused to vacate the premises.
9. MTC rendered its decision and declares the consignation of rentals made by
the petitioner to be valid and legal and hereby release[s] the petitioner from
the obligation of paying the said rentals.
10.Both parties appealed to the RTC of Manila and RTC affirmed the decision
of the MTC.
11.Cu then went to the Court of Appeals on a petition for review 6 alleging
therein that the RTC erred "in not fixing a longer period of extension of
the lease" and "in extending the duration of the lease to 30 June 1992
but subverting its factual findings in justification of the extension as it
concluded that the period was intended by the parties for a longer
duration.
12.Court of Appeals reversed and set aside the decisions of the MTC and the
RTC and dismissed the complaint for consignation for lack of merit. It
likewise said that the MTC and the RTC erred in passing upon the issue of
ejectment raised in Chan's counterclaim since an action for ejectment can
only be initiated through a verified complaint, not a counterclaim.
13.In dismissing the complaint for consignation, the Court of Appeals
ruled that under Article 1256 of the Civil Code, consignation may only
be resorted to by a debtor if the creditor to whom tender of payment
has been made refuses without just cause to accept it. The Court of
Appeals held that Chan's refusal to accept the rental was justified

Issue:

1. WON the Court of Appeals erred dismissing the validity of consignation

2. WON the plaintiff may be ejected from the subject premises

Held:

1. Yes. It must be stressed that the validity of the consignation and the
propriety of the counterclaim for ejectment were not raised before the
Court of Appeals. As to the first, both the MTC and the RTC rules that the
consignation was valid. Since the validity of the consignation was not raised
before it, the Court of Appeals seriously erred when it dismissed the
complaint for consignation on the ground that it has no merit.

A counterclaim is any claim for money or other relief which a defending party
may have against an opposing party. It need not diminish or defeat the recovery
sought by the opposing party, but may claim relief exceeding in amount or
different in kind from that sought by the opposing party's claim. 24
 Counterclaims are designed to enable the disposition of a whole controversy of
interested parties' conflicting claims, at one time and in one action, provided all
the parties can be brought before the court and the matter decided without
prejudicing the rights of any party. 25 A counterclaim "is in itself a distinct and
independent cause of action, so that when properly stated as such, the defendant
becomes, in respect to the matter stated by him, an actor, and there are two
simultaneous actions pending between the same parties, wherein each is at the
same time both a plaintiff and a defendant. . . . A counterclaim stands on the
same footing and is to be tested by the same rules, as if it were an independent
action." 26 In short, the defendant is a plaintiff with respect to his
counterclaim.

2. Chan's counterclaim for ejectment is a compulsory counterclaim because it

is necessarily connected with the transaction or occurrence which is the
subject matter of Cu's complaint, viz., the lease contract between them.
Consequently, the Court of Appeals erred when it held that Chan's cause of
action for ejectment could not be seen up in a counterclaim.

We agreed with Chan that Ching Pue vs. Gonzales is inapplicable because in
Ching Pue the consignation cases were filed with the Court of First Instance
which did not have jurisdiction over ejectment cases; necessarily, no
counterclaim for ejectment could have been interposed therein. The ratio
decidendi of the said case is that consignation is not proper where the refusal of
the creditor to accept tender of payment is with just cause. One will search
therein in vain even for an obiter dictum which suggests that an action for
ejection cannot be set up in a counterclaim. In the instant case, the ejectment
was set up as a counterclaim in the MTC which has jurisdiction over it and Cu
joined that issue and the incidents thereto by her answer to the counterclaim and
the counterclaim to the counterclaim.

Sameer Overseas Placement vs Santos

This is a petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court
Facts:

1. Petitioner Santos (Santos, et al.) were recruited by petitioner Sameer

Overseas Placement Agency, Inc. (Sameer) as aluminum products
manufacturer operators for Ensure Company Ltd. of Taiwan (Ensure), under
a one-year employment contract with a basic monthly salary of
NT$14,800.00.
2. Santos, et al. were deployed and were able to work for Ensure.  However,
they were repatriated even prior to the expiration of their contracts.
3. Santos, et al. filed complaints against Sameer before the National Labor
Relations Commission (NLRC) for illegal dismissal, underpayment of
salaries, and unauthorized salary deductions.
4. Sameer filed a third party complaint against private respondent ASBT
International Management Service, Inc. (ASBT). It claimed that the latter
should be liable for all the contractual obligations of Ensure since Sameer’s
accreditation was transferred to ASBT.
5. The Labor Arbiter ordered Sameer to pay the plaintiff.
6. Dissatisfied, Sameer appealed to the NLRC alleging, among others, that the
Labor Arbiter committed grave abuse of discretion in failing to decide the
third-party complaint, to its damage and prejudice, insisting that it should
have been absolved of any and all liabilities pertaining to the claims of
Santos, et al.
7. NLRC absolved SAMEER Overseas Placement Agency, Inc. from its
liabilities.
8. Aggrieved, ASBT moved for reconsideration.  The NLRC denied the motion
for lack of merit.
 9. ASBT elevated the case to the Court of Appeals via a petition for certiorari
under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court. 
10. The Court of Appeals denied due course and dismissed ASBT’s petition on
the ground that the attached Verification and Certification of Non-
Forum Shopping was signed by Mildred R. Santos as President of ASBT
without any proof of authority to sign for and bind ASBT in the
proceedings.
11. ASBT filed a motion for reconsideration submitting therewith the necessary
board resolution authorizing corporate president Mildred R. Santos to
represent ASBT before the Court of Appeals.  The appellate court granted
the motion and reinstated the petition.
12. The Court of Appeals ruled in favor of ASBT.
13. Sameer, thus, moved to reconsider but the Court of Appeals denied. Hence
the petition.

Issue:

1. WON the Petition and the Motion for Reconsideration should be

considered unsigned pleadings which produce no legal effect, pursuant to
the last paragraph of Section 3, Rule 7 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.
2. WON ASBT violated the prohibition against forum shopping.

Held:

1. No. Section 3, Rule 7 of the Rules of Civil Procedure provides—

SEC. 3. Signature and address.—Every pleading must be signed by

the party or counsel representing him, stating in either case his address
which should not be a post office box.
2.  
The signature of counsel constitutes a certificate by him that he has read the
pleading; that to the best of his knowledge, information, and belief there is
good ground to support it; and that it is not interposed for delay.
 
An unsigned pleading produces no legal effect.  However, the court ay, in its
discretion, allow such deficiency to be remedied if it shall appear that the
same was due to mere inadvertence and not intended for delay.  Counsel
who deliberately files an unsigned pleading, or signs a pleading in violation
of this Rule, or alleges scandalous or indecent matter therein, or fails to
promptly report to the court a change of his address, shall be subject to
appropriate disciplinary action. (Emphasis supplied.)

          Obviously, the rule allows the pleadings to be signed by either the party to
the case or the counsel representing that party.  In this case, ASBT, as petitioner,
opted to sign its petition and its motion for reconsideration in its own behalf,
through its corporate president, Mildred R. Santos, who was duly authorized by
ASBT’s Board of Directors to represent the company in prosecuting this case. 
Therefore, the said pleadings cannot be considered unsigned and without any legal
effect.

2.Sameer also submits that ASBT violated the prohibition against forum shopping. 
It claims that the transfer of the case from the Seventh Division of the Court of
Appeals—which initially denied due course and dismissed the petition then
reinstated the same (upon proof that Mildred R. Santos as duly authorized) in the
Former Fourth Division, which gave due course to and granted the petition—was
actually an act of forum shopping.  Sameer posits that the grant of ASBT’s July 5,
2001 motion for reconsideration by the Seventh Division, which reinstated the
dismissed petition, in effect gave rise to a new petition.

The argument is sadly misplaced.  Forum shopping is defined as an act of a party,

against whom an adverse judgment or order has been rendered in one forum, of
seeking and possibly getting a favorable opinion in another forum, other than by
appeal or special civil action for certiorari.  It may also be the institution of two or
more actions or proceedings grounded on the same cause on the supposition that
one or the other court would make a favorable disposition.  There is forum
shopping where the elements of litis pendentia are present, namely: (a) there is
identity of parties, or at least such parties as represent the same interest in both
actions; (b) there is identity of rights asserted and relief prayed for, the relief being
founded on the same set of facts; and (c) the identity of the two preceding
particulars is such that any judgment rendered in the pending case, regardless of
which party is successful, would amount to res judicata in the other. 

          In this case, there is clearly no forum shopping committed by ASBT.  The
July 5, 2001 motion it filed praying for reconsideration of the June 19, 2001
Resolution of the Court of Appeals, dismissing the petition on the technical ground
of lack of proof of the authority of ASBT President Mildred R. Santos to bind the
corporation in its appeal, is simply what it is, a motion for reconsideration.  Sameer
cannot insist that it be treated as a new petition just to make it fit the definition of
forum shopping in an attempt to evade liability to pay the amounts awarded to
Santos, et al.  Nor was Sameer correct when it asseverated that the Seventh
Division, that initially dismissed then reinstated ASBT’s petition, and the Former
Fourth Division, that rendered the questioned Decision and Resolution in favor of
ASBT, can be considered as different fora within the ambit of the prohibition. 
They are mere divisions of one and the same Court of Appeals.  And as explained
by the appellate court, what actually happened was that after the Seventh Division
issued its June 19, 2001 Resolution dismissing the case for failure of ASBT to
show that Mildred R. Santos was authorized to sign and bind the corporation in the
proceedings, ASBT complied and submitted the requisite proof of authority.  The
Seventh Division then issued a Resolution on August 14, 2001 reinstating the
petition.  After an internal reorganization, it was the Fourth Division which
promulgated a decision on December 10, 2001.  ASBT never filed a second
petition.