GR 103922; (July, 1996) (Digest)
G.R. No. 103922 July 9, 1996
SANTIAGO LAND DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, petitioner, vs. COURT OF APPEALS and KOMATSU INDUSTRIES (PHILS.), INC., respondents.
FACTS
Petitioner Santiago Land Development Corporation (SLDC) purchased a property from the Philippine National Bank (PNB), which had extrajudicially foreclosed the same from respondent Komatsu Industries (Phil.), Inc. due to non-payment of a loan. During the pendency of Komatsu’s suit against PNB to annul the foreclosure sale, SLDC intervened as a transferee pendente lite. SLDC subsequently served written interrogatories upon Komatsu’s counsel. Komatsu failed to answer these interrogatories.
SLDC moved to dismiss Komatsu’s action with prejudice under Section 5, Rule 29 of the Rules of Court, which allows dismissal for willful failure to answer interrogatories. The trial court denied the motion. SLDC elevated the matter via a petition for certiorari to the Court of Appeals, arguing the trial court committed grave abuse of discretion. The Court of Appeals, while finding that service of the interrogatories was valid and that Komatsu’s failure to answer warranted dismissal under the rules, nevertheless dismissed SLDC’s petition.
ISSUE
Whether the Court of Appeals erred in dismissing SLDC’s petition for certiorari, despite recognizing that the trial court’s denial of the motion to dismiss was an error of judgment under the Rules of Court.
RULING
The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, affirming the Court of Appeals. The legal logic centers on the distinction between an error of judgment and grave abuse of discretion correctable by certiorari. While the trial court may have committed an error in not dismissing the case for failure to answer interrogatories, such an error does not automatically equate to grave abuse of discretion. The sanction of dismissal under Rule 29 is discretionary, not mandatory. The trial court’s exercise of that discretion, even if arguably incorrect, was not shown to be capricious, arbitrary, or despotic. Certiorari is a remedy to correct jurisdictional defects or grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction, not to correct mere errors of procedure or judgment. Since the trial court’s order was an interlocutory one and no grave abuse of discretion was patent, the special civil action of certiorari was an improper remedy. The proper course was to await the final judgment and raise the issue on appeal.