THIRD DIVISION
O.B. JOVENIR CONSTRUCTION G.R. No. 135803
AND
DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION,
OSCAR
B. JOVENIR and GREGORIO
LIONGSON,
Present:
Petitioners,
QUISUMBING, J.* Chairperson,
- versus - CARPIO,
CARPIO MORALES, and
TINGA, JJ.
MACAMIR
REALTY AND
DEVELOPMENT
CORPORATION,
SPOUSES
ROSAURO and GLORIA Promulgated:
MIRANDA
and the HONORABLE
COURT
OF APPEALS,
Respondents.
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Tinga, J.:
In denying the present petition, the
Court affirms the right of a plaintiff to cause the dismissal of the complaint
at any time before service of the answer without need of affirmative action on
the part of the trial court. It must be qualified though that the incidents for
adjudication occurred a few months before the effectivity of the 1997 Rules of
Civil Procedure[1] which
now requires that upon the filing of such notice, the court issue an order
confirming the dismissal.[2]
The precedental value of this decision is thus
qualified to instances occurring prior to the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure.
On 3 February 1997,[3] a complaint
was filed before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Makati
City, with private respondents Macamir Realty and
Development Corp. (Macamir Realty) and spouses Rosauro and Gloria Miranda as plaintiffs, and petitioners
O.B. Jovenir Construction and Development Corp. (Jovenir Construction), Oscar B. Jovenir,
and Gregorio Liongson being among the defendants. The
complaint, docketed as Civil Case No. 97-256, sought the annulment of certain
agreements between private respondents and petitioners, as well as damages.[4] It
was alleged that Jovenir Construction was contracted
to complete the construction of private respondents
condominium project. Private respondents subsequently sought the termination of
their agreements with petitioners after it was discovered that Jovenir Construction had misrepresented itself as a
legitimate contractor.[5] Respondents likewise prayed for the issuance
of a writ
of
preliminary injunction. A hearing on the prayer appears to have been
conducted on
It was also alleged in the complaint
that Gloria Miranda was the principal stockholder and President of Macamir Realty while her husband Rosauro was the owner of the real properties on which the
condominium project was being constructed.[7]
Almost immediately, two of the impleaded defendants filed their respective motions to
dismiss. Defendant Salud Madeja
filed her motion on
On 13 February 1997, or 10 days after
the filing of the complaint, private respondents filed a Motion to Withdraw
Complaint, alleging that during the initial hearing on the prayer for
preliminary injunction on 6 February 1997, counsel for plaintiffs “discovered a
supposed technical defect in the complaint x x x that x x x may be a ground for the dismissal of this case.”[9]
Thus, private respondents prayed that the plaintiffs be allowed to withdraw the
complaint without prejudice.
Petitioners filed an opposition to the
Motion to Withdraw Complaint on
3. That other than Civil Case No. 97-256 filed on
February 3, 1997 before the Regional Trial Court of Makati
City which was withdrawn on February 13, 1997, I further certify that we have
not commenced any other action or proceedings involving the same issue in the
Supreme Court, or Court of Appeals or any other tribunal or agency; x x x [10]
On
The battle then shifted to Civil Case
No. 97-379, which had been raffled to Branch 136 of the Makati
RTC. On
Special
Sixth Division in its Decision[15]
dated
Petitioners now argue that under
Section 1 of Rule 17 of the Rules of Civil Procedure in effect at the time of
these antecedents, the plaintiff may obtain the dismissal of his own complaint
before a responsive pleading has been filed through the filing of a notice of
dismissal. However, respondents in this
case did not file a notice of dismissal, but instead lodged a Motion to
Withdraw Complaint, a motion which requires affirmative action from the court
before the complaint may be deemed dismissed.
Since the Makati RTC had granted the motion
only on
We find
no error on the part of the lower courts since the denial of the motion to
dismiss is wholly in accord with the Rules of Civil Procedure.
Section 1, Rule 17 of the 1964 Rules
of Civil Procedure stated:
Dismissal by the plaintiff — An action may be dismissed by the plaintiff without
order of court by filing a notice of dismissal at any time before service of
the answer or of a motion for summary judgment. Unless otherwise stated in the
notice, the dismissal is without prejudice, except that a notice operates
as an adjudication upon the merits when filed by a
plaintiff who has once dismissed in a competent court an action based on or
including the same claim. A class suit shall not be dismissed or compromised
without the approval of the court.[17]
Indubitably, the provision ordained
the dismissal of the complaint by the plaintiff as a matter of right at any
time before service of the answer.[18] The plaintiff was accorded the right to
dismiss the complaint without the necessity of alleging in the notice of
dismissal any ground nor of making any reservation.[19]
In Go v. Cruz,[20]
the Court, through Chief Justice Narvasa, has
recognized that “where the dismissal of an action rests exclusively on the will
of a plaintiff or claimant, to prevent which the defending party and even the
court itself is powerless, requiring in fact no action whatever on the part of
the court except the acceptance and recording of the causative document.”[21] The facts in that case are well worth
considering. Therein, the notice of
dismissal was filed by the plaintiff on
The Court further ruled that
“[plaintiff’s] notice ipso facto brought about the dismissal of the
action then pending in the
It is quite clear that under Section
1, Rule 17 of the old Rules, the dismissal contemplated therein could be
accomplished by the plaintiff through mere notice of dismissal, and not through
motion subject to approval by the Court. Dismissal is ipso facto upon notice, and without prejudice unless otherwise stated in the
notice. It is due to these considerations that the petition should be denied.
Evidently, respondents had the right
to dismiss their complaint by mere notice on
We are
in accord with the Court of Appeals when it pronounced:
While [the Motion to Withdraw Complaint] is styled as
a “motion” and contains a “prayer”, these are innocuous errors and
superfluities that do not detract from its being a notice of dismissal made
under said Section 1 of Rule 17 and which ipso facto dismissed the case. It is
a hornbook rule that it is not the caption of a pleading but the allegations
thereat that determines its nature.[[25]]
The court order of dismissal is a mere surplusage
under the circumstances and emphasized by the court a quo itself when it
granted the motion “[x x x]
considering that an action may be dismissed by the plaintiffs even without
Order of the Court[x x x]”[26]
Thus, the complaint could be properly
considered as having been dismissed or withdrawn as of
Petitioners are unable to propose any
convincing legal argument or any jurisprudence that would sway the Court to
their point of view. At the same time, our present ruling must be distinguished
from Ortigas & Company Limited Partnership
v. Velasco,[28] wherein
it was advanced that “theoretically every final disposition of an action does
not attain finality until after fifteen (15) days therefrom,
x x x the plaintiff may
move to withdraw and set aside his notice of dismissal and revive his action,
before that period lapses.”[29] That statement was made in the context of
ruling that a plaintiff may move for the revival of the complaint dismissed on
his instance under Section 1 of Rule 17 only within 15 days upon notice;
otherwise the remedy of the plaintiff would be to file a new complaint. This observation in Ortigas
does not detract from the fact that under Section 1, Rule 17 of the previous
Rules, the complaint is deemed ipso facto dismissed on the day of the
filing of the notice. This again is because dismissal at the instance of the
plaintiff under Section 1, Rule 17 is a matter of right, and under the 1964
Rules of Civil Procedure, effective without need of any affirmative action on
the part of the trial court.
As noted at the onset, the 1997 Rules
of Civil Procedure now requires that upon the filing of such notice, the court
issue an order confirming the dismissal.[30] The new requirement is intended to qualify
the right of a party to dismiss the action before the adverse party files an answer or asks for summary judgment.[31]
Still, there is no cause to apply the 1997 Rules retroactively to this case. A
plaintiff’s right to cause the dismissal of his complaint under the old rules
was unqualified. Procedural rules may not be given retroactive effect if vested rights
would be disturbed,[32] or
if their
application
would not be feasible or would work injustice.[33]
Since
respondents
possessed an unqualified right to cause the dismissal of their complaint
without need of confirmation by the trial court, as enunciated in the 1964 Rules,
they did not err in asserting that their first complaint was withdrawn on the
day of the filing of their motion to withdraw, and the lower courts were
correct in agreeing with respondents on this point.
WHEREFORE, the Petition is DENIED. Costs against petitioners.
SO ORDERED.
DANTE O. TINGA
Associate Justice
WE CONCUR:
(On Official Leave)
LEONARDO
A. QUISUMBING
Associate
Justice
Chairman
ANTONIO T. CARPIO
CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES
Associate Justice Associate Justice
(Acting Chairman)
ATTESTATION
I
attest that the conclusions in the above Decision had been reached in
consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the
Court’s Division.
ANTONIO T. CARPIO
Associate Justice
Acting Chairman, Third Division
CERTIFICATION
Pursuant
to Section 13, Article VIII of the Constitution, and the Division Acting Chairman’s
Attestation, it is hereby certified that the conclusions in the above Decision
had been reached in consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of
the opinion of the Court’s Division.
ARTEMIO V. PANGANIBAN
Chief Justice
[15]Penned by Justice Roberto A. Barrios, concurred in by Justices Artemon D. Luna and Demetrio G. Demetria.