HACIENDA BIGAA INC. G.R. No.

174160 April 20, 2010

Vs

EPIFANIO V. CHAVEZ (deceased)

FACTS:
Petitioner Hacienda Bigaa, Inc. filed with the MTC of Calatagan, Batangas a
complaint for ejectment and damages with application for writ of preliminary injunction
against respondent Epifanio V. Chavez. The complaint alleged that Chavez, by force,
strategy and/or stealth, entered into the premises of Hacienda Bigaa's properties
covered by Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) Nos. 44695 and 56120 by cutting through
a section of the barbed wire fence surrounding the properties and destroying the lock of
one of its gates, subsequently building a house on the property, and occupying the lots
without the prior consent and against the will of Hacienda Bigaa.
 
The records show that the lots were originally covered by TCT No. 722 owned by
Ayala y Cia and/or Alfonso, Jacobo and Enrique Zobel, known as Hacienda Calatagan.
They later acquired excess lands under same title. The Ayalas and/or the Zobels then
later ordered the subdivision of the hacienda, including these excess areas, and sold
the subdivided lots to third parties. Among the buyers or transferees of the expanded
and subdivided areas was Hacienda Bigaa.

Portions of the same lands were leased out by the Republic, through the Bureau
of Fisheries, to qualified applicants in whose favor fishpond permits were issued. The
government-issued fishpond permits pertaining to lands covered by titles derived from
TCT No. 722. Suits were filed in various courts in Batangas for the recovery of the areas
in excess of the area originally covered by TCT No. 722, which suits ultimately reached
the Supreme Court. In the Court's 1965 decisions in Dizon v. Rodriguez (for quieting of
title) and Republic v. Ayala y Cia and/or Hacienda Calatagan, et al. (for annulment of
titles), the excess areas of TCT No. 722 were categorically declared as unregisterable
lands of the public domain such that any title covering these excess areas are
necessarily null and void. In these cases, the Ayalas and the Zobels were found to be
mere usurpers of public domain areas, and all subdivision titles issued to them or their
privies and covering these areas were invalidated; the wrongfully registered public
domain areas reverted to the Republic. 
 
To return to the forcible entry case, then Chavez alleged in his answer before
the MTC of Calatagan that his mother, Zoila de Chavez (who died intestate on
September 14, 1979) was a fishpond permittee/lessee under a Fishpond Permit issued
by the Bureau of Fisheries; that the areas covered by the permits are the same parcels
of land which he presently occupies as Zoila's successor-in-interest and which
Hacienda Bigaa also claims.
 
Chavez argued that the suit is barred by prior judgment in two prior cases (1)
Civil Case No. 78, a suit for unlawful detainer filed by the Zobels against Chavez’s
predecessor-in-interest, Zoila de Chavez, before the then Justice of the Peace Court
(now Municipal Trial Court) of Calatagan and (2) Civil Case No. 653, a case of accion
reinvindicatoria with prayer for preliminary mandatory injunction filed by the Republic,
Zoila de Chavez, and other lessees or fishpond permittees of the Republic, against
Enrique Zobel (Hacienda Bigaa's predecessor-in-interest) before the then Court of First
Instance of Batangas. This case reached the SC, entitled Republic of the Philippines v.
De los Angeles, Enrique Zobel, et al. and was decided in 1988. Chavez asserts that the
subject matter and the issues involved in these cases are squarely similar and/or
identical to the subject matter and issues involved in the present forcible entry suit;
the rulings in these two cases, therefore constitute res judicata with respect to
the present case.
 
The MTC rendered a decision dismissing Hacienda Bigaa's complaint,
holding that the disputed lots form part of the areas illegally expanded and made to
appear to be covered by TCT No. 722 of Hacienda Bigaa's predecessors-in-interest
hence, the Hacienda's title are null and void. In so ruling, the MTC applied this Court's
pronouncements in the antecedent cases of Dizon v. Rodriguez, Republic v. Ayala y
Cia and/or Hacienda Calatagan, Zobel, et al., and Republic v. De los Angeles. MTC
also ruled that the identity of the parties, subject, issues and cause of action are the
same.
RTC and the CA affirmed in toto the appealed decision.
 ISSUE: Is there Res Judicata? YES
  
HELD:
The doctrine of res judicata is set forth in Section 47 of Rule 39 of the Rules of
Court, which in its relevant part reads:
 
Sec. 47.  Effect of judgments or final orders. The effect of a judgment or
final order rendered by a court of the Philippines, having jurisdiction to pronounce
the judgment or final order, may be as follows:
 
(b) In other cases, the judgment or final order is, with respect to the matter
directly adjudged or as to any other matter that could have been raised in relation
thereto, conclusive between the parties and their successors in interest by title
subsequent to the commencement of the action or special proceeding, litigating
for the same thing and under the same title and in the same capacity; and
 
(c) In any other litigation between the same parties or their successors in
interest, that only is deemed to have been adjudged in a former judgment or final
order which appears upon its face to have been so adjudged, or which was
actually and necessarily included therein or necessary thereto.
 
This provision comprehends two distinct concepts of res judicata: (1) bar by
former judgment and (2) conclusiveness of judgment. Under the first
concept, res judicata absolutely bars any subsequent action when the following
requisites concur:  (a) the former judgment or order was final; (b) it adjudged the
pertinent issue or issues on their merits; (c) it was rendered by a court that had
jurisdiction over the subject matter and the parties; and (d) between the first and the
second actions, there was identity of parties, of subject matter, and of causes of action.
[39]

 
Where no identity of causes of action but only identity of
issues exists, res judicata comes under the second concept i.e.,
under conclusiveness of judgment.  Under this concept, the rule bars the re-litigation
of particular facts or issues involving the same parties even if raised
under different claims or causes of action. Conclusiveness of judgment finds application
when a fact or question has been squarely put in issue, judicially passed upon, and
adjudged in a former suit by a court of competent jurisdiction. The fact or question
settled by final judgment or order binds the parties to that action (and persons in privity
with them or their successors-in-interest), and continues to bind them while the
judgment or order remains standing and unreversed by proper authority on a timely
motion or petition; the conclusively settled fact or question furthermore cannot again be
litigated in any future or other action between the same parties or their privies and
successors-in-interest, in the same or in any other court of concurrent jurisdiction, either
for the same or for a different cause of action.  Thus, only the identities of parties and
issues are required for the operation of the principle of conclusiveness of judgment.
While conclusiveness of judgment does not have the same barring effect
as that of a bar by former judgment that proscribes subsequent actions, the
former nonetheless estops the parties from raising in a later case the issues or
points that were raised and controverted, and were determinative of the ruling in
the earlier case. In other words, the dictum laid down in the earlier final judgment or
order becomes conclusive and continues to be binding between the same parties, their
privies and successors-in-interest, as long as the facts on which that judgment was
predicated continue to be the facts of the case or incident before the court in a later
case; the binding effect and enforceability of that earlier dictum can no longer be re-
litigated in a later case since the issue has already been resolved and finally laid to rest
in the earlier case.
 
SC rejected, Hacienda Bigaa's position that there could be no res
judicata in this case because the present suit is for forcible entry while the
antecedent cases adverted were based on different causes of action i.e., quieting
of title, annulment of titles and accion reinvindicatoria. For, res judicata, under
the concept of conclusiveness of judgment, operates even if no absolute identity
of causes of action exists. Res judicata, in its conclusiveness of judgment
concept, merely requires identity of issues. We thus agree with the uniform view of
the lower courts the MTC, RTC and the CA on the application of res judicata to the
present case.