DIGEST/FERNANDEZ/SARONA ,ET.AL VS. VILLEGAS/1968

 

MARGARITO SARONA, ET AL VS. FELIPE VILLEGAS and RAMONA CARILLO

G.R. No. L-22984, March 27, 1968

 

FACTS:

On January 28, 1963, plaintiffs lodged with the Municipal Court of Padada, Davao, against defendants as complaint, styled "Unlawful Detainer." They there aver that they are the absolute owners and in possession of a parcel of land in Paligue, Padada.

They asked that they be restored into possession, and that defendants be made to pay rents, attorneys' fees, expenses of litigation, and costs.

Defendants met the complaint with a motion to dismiss on the sole ground of lack of jurisdiction of the municipal court. They say that the case is one of forcible entry, and the reglementary one-year period had elapsed before suit was started. However, the municipal court overturned the motion to dismiss.

In their answer, the defendants reiterated the court's lack of jurisdiction, and by way of affirmative defenses, stated that plaintiffs have no cause of action, and that "the present residential house of the defendants was transferred to the present site after plaintiffs sold to defendants a portion of their land, which includes the site of the present house and from and after said sale, defendants have occupied the said portion legally and with the knowledge and consent of plaintiffs." They counterclaimed for damages.

In its decision municipal court directed defendants to vacate the premises, to pay plaintiffs a monthly rental of P10.00, from April 1, 1958 until possession is restored, and P200.00 as attorneys' fees, and costs.

Defendants, appealed to the court of First Instance of Davao which dismissed the case. The court reasoned that the suit was one of forcible entry and was started beyond the reglementary one-year period. Hence, Plaintiffs appealed to this Court.

ISSUE:

Whether or not the complaint is one of forcible entry or unlawful detainer.

RULING:

The complaint is one of forcible entry.

Section 1, Rule 70 (formerly Section 10, Rule 72) of the Revised Rules of Court, states that a person deprived of possession of land "by force, intimidation, threat, strategy, or stealth," or a person against whom the possession of any land "is unlawfully withheld after the expiration or termination of the right to hold possession, by virtue of any contract, express or implied," may at any time "within one (1) year after such unlawful deprivation or withholding of possession, bring an action in the proper inferior court against the person or persons unlawfully withholding or depriving of possession."

Section 2 of the same Rule, provides that the landlord may not sue his tenant for ejectment "for failure to pay rent due or to comply with the conditions of his lease, unless the tenant shall have failed to pay such rent or comply with such conditions for a period of fifteen (15) days, or five (5) days in the case of building, after demand therefor.

 It is plain that the foregoing rules define two entirely distinct causes of action, to wit: (a) action to recover possession founded on illegal occupation from the beginning — forcible entry; and (b) action founded on unlawful detention by a person who originally acquired possession lawfully — unlawful detainer. 

The law and jurisprudence leave no doubt in our mind that what determines the cause of action is the nature of defendants' entry into the land. If entry is illegal, then the cause of action which may be filed against the intruder within one year therefrom is forcible entry. If, on the other hand, entry is legal but thereafter possession became illegal, the case is one of illegal detainer which must be filed within one year from the date of the last demand.

 In the case at bar, defendants' alleged entry into the land is not characterized — whether legal or illegal. It does not say how defendants entered the land and constructed their residential house thereon. It is silent, too, whether possession became legal before plaintiffs made the demand to vacate and to pay rentals. Nor does the complaint as much as intimate that defendants are plaintiffs' tenants. So that the case would not come within the coverage of Section 2 of Rule 70 (summary action by landlord against tenant).

Here, the only definite ultimate facts averred are that on April 1, 1958, defendants entered upon the land and constructed their residential house thereon, remained in possession thereof, and that demand to vacate and pay rentals only was made on December 28, 1962, well beyond the one-year period, the municipal court of Padada did not have jurisdiction. And since the parties went to trial on the merits, and it came to light that defendants' entry was illegal at the inception, the municipal court should have dismissed the case. That court cannot close its eyes to the truth revealed by plaintiffs' own evidence before it. A court of limited jurisdiction, said municipal court, should not have proceeded to render an on-the-merits judgment thereon.

Clearly, plaintiffs' case fits in the jurisprudential precept of forcible entry. Because the entry is forcible. In order to constitute the use of "force," the trespasser does not have to institute a state of war. Nor is it even necessary that he should use violence against the person of the party in possession. The act of going on the property and excluding the lawful possessor therefrom necessarily implies the exertion of force over the property, and this is all that is necessary.

But even where possession preceding the suit is by tolerance of the owner, still, distinction should be made. If right at the incipiency defendants' possession was with plaintiffs' tolerance, we do not doubt that the latter may require him to vacate the premises and sue before the inferior court under Section 1 of Rule 70, within one year from the date of the demand to vacate. Because, from the date of demand, possession became unlawful. And the case is illegal detainer.

But will this rule as to tolerance hold true in a case where there was forcible entry at the start, but the lawful possessor did not attempt to oust the intruder for over one year, and only thereafter filed forcible entry suit following demand to vacate?

A close assessment of the law and the concept of the word "tolerance" confirms our view heretofore expressed that such tolerance must be present right from the start of possession sought to be recovered, to categorize a cause of action as one of unlawful detainer — not of forcible entry. Indeed, to hold otherwise would espouse a dangerous doctrine. And for two reasons: First. Forcible entry into the land is an open challenge to the right of the possessor. Violation of that right authorizes the speedy redress — in the inferior court — provided for in the rules. If one year from the forcible entry is allowed to lapse before suit is filed, then the remedy ceases to be speedy; and the possessor is deemed to have waived his right to seek relief in the inferior court. Second. If a forcible entry action in the inferior court is allowed after the lapse of a number of years, then the result may well be that no action of forcible entry can really prescribe. No matter how long such defendant is in physical possession, plaintiff will merely make a demand, bring suit in the inferior court — upon a plea of tolerance to prevent prescription to set in — and summarily throw him out of the land. Such a conclusion is unreasonable. Especially if we bear in mind the postulates that proceedings of forcible entry and unlawful detainer are summary in nature, and that the one-year time-bar to the suit is but in pursuance of the summary nature of the action. 

It is well to remember that after the lapse of the one-year period, suit must be started in the Court of First Instance in an accion publiciana. Jurisdiction in the case before us is with the Court of First Instance.

The order of the Court of First Instance of Davao dismissing the case for want of jurisdiction in the Municipal Court of Padada, is hereby affirmed.