REM REV DIGESTS
4CDE 2020 – 2021
Topic: B.P. 129
HEIRS OF RETERTA v. SPS. LOPEZ
G.R. No. 159941. August 17, 2011
DOCTRINE: An action for reconveyance or to remove a cloud on one's title involves the title to,
or possession of, real property, or any interest therein, exclusive original jurisdiction over such
action pertained to the RTC, unless the assessed value of the property did not exceed P20,000.00
FACTS:
On May 2, 2000, the petitioners commenced an action for quieting of title and
reconveyance in the RTC in Trece Martires City (Civil Case No. TM-983), averring that they were
the true and real owners of the parcel of land (the land) situated in Trez Cruzes, Tanza, Cavite,
containing an area of 47,708 square meters, having inherited the land from their father who had
died on July 11, 1983; that their late father had been the grantee of the land by virtue of his
occupation and cultivation; that their late father and his predecessors in interest had been in open,
exclusive, notorious, and continuous possession of the land for more than 30 years; that they had
discovered in 1999 an affidavit dated March 1, 1966 that their father had purportedly executed
whereby he had waived his rights, interests, and participation in the land; that by virtue of the
affidavit, Sales Certificate No. V-769 had been issued in favor of respondent Lorenzo Mores by
the then Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources; and that Transfer Certificate of Title
No. T-64071 had later issued to the respondents.
On August 1, 2000, the respondents, as defendants, filed a motion to dismiss, insisting
that the RTC had no jurisdiction to take cognizance of Civil Case No. TM-983 due to the land
being friar land, and that the petitioners had no legal personality to commence Civil Case No. TM-
983. On October 29, 2001, the RTC granted the motion to dismiss. The petitioners then timely
filed a motion for reconsideration, but the RTC denied their motion for reconsideration on February
21, 2002.
On May 15, 2002, therefore, the petitioners assailed the dismissal via petition for certiorari,
but the CA dismissed the petition on the ground that certiorari was not a substitute for an appeal,
the proper recourse against the dismissal. On September 9, 2003, the CA denied the petitioners'
motion for reconsideration. Hence, this appeal.
The petitioners posit that a special civil action for certiorari was their proper remedy to
assail the order of dismissal in light of certain rules of procedure, specifically pointing out that the
second paragraph of Section 1 of Rule 37 of the Rules of Court ("An order denying a motion for
new trial or reconsideration is not appealable, the remedy being an appeal from the judgment or
final order") prohibited an appeal of a denial of the motion for reconsideration, and that the second
paragraph of Section 1 of Rule 41 of the Rules of Court ("No appeal may be taken from: . . . An
order denying a motion for new trial or reconsideration") expressly declared that an order denying
a motion for reconsideration was not appealable. They remind that the third paragraph of Section
1 of Rule 41 expressly provided that in the instances "where the judgment or final order is not
appealable, the aggrieved party may file an appropriate special civil action under Rule 65."
ISSUE:
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REM REV DIGESTS
4CDE 2020 – 2021
Whether or not special civil action of certiorari was the correct remedy against the
dismissal of the action.
HELD:
Yes, However, the petitioners' position has no basis.
For one, the order that the petitioners really wanted to obtain relief from was the order
granting the respondents' motion to dismiss, not the denial of the motion for reconsideration. The
fact that the order granting the motion to dismiss was a final order for thereby completely disposing
of the case, leaving nothing more for the trial court to do in the action, truly called for an appeal,
instead of certiorari, as the correct remedy.
It is true that Administrative Matter No. 07-7-12-SC, effective December 27, 2007, has
since amended Section 1, Rule 41, supra, by deleting an order denying a motion for new trial or
motion for reconsideration from the enumeration of non-appealable orders, and that such a
revision of a procedural rule may be retroactively applied. However, to reverse the CA on that
basis would not be right and proper, simply because the CA correctly applied the rule of procedure
in force at the time when it issued its assailed final order.
Since an action for reconveyance or to remove a cloud on one's title involves the title to,
or possession of, real property, or any interest therein, exclusive original jurisdiction over such
action pertained to the RTC, unless the assessed value of the property did not exceed P20,000.00
(in which instance the MTC having territorial jurisdiction would have exclusive original jurisdiction).
Determinative of which regular court had jurisdiction would be the allegations of the complaint (on
the assessed value of the property) and the principal relief thereby sought.
The authority of Land Management Bureau (LMB) under Act No. 1120, being limited to
the administration and disposition of friar lands, did not include the petitioners' action for
reconveyance. LMB ceases to have jurisdiction once the friar land is disposed of in favor of a
private person and title duly issues in the latter's name. By ignoring the petitioners' showing of its
plain error in dismissing Civil Case No. TM-983, and by disregarding the allegations of the
complaint, the RTC acted whimsically and capriciously.
Given all the foregoing, the RTC committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack
of jurisdiction. The term grave abuse of discretion connotes whimsical and capricious exercise of
judgment as is equivalent to excess, or lack of jurisdiction. The abuse must be so patent and
gross as to amount to an evasion of a positive duty or to a virtual refusal to perform a duty enjoined
by law, or to act at all in contemplation of law as where the power is exercised in an arbitrary and
despotic manner by reason of passion or hostility.
The dismissal of Civil Case No. TM-983, unless undone, would leave the petitioners bereft
of any remedy to protect their substantial rights or interests in the land. As such, they would suffer
grave injustice and irreparable damage. In that situation, the RTC's dismissal should be annulled
through certiorari, for the task of the remedy was to do justice to the unjustly aggrieved.
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