GR 150888; (September, 2004) (Digest)
G.R. No. 150888 ; September 24, 2004
TRAVERSE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, petitioner, vs. DEVELOPMENT BANK OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondent.
FACTS
Traverse Development Corporation obtained a loan from DBP, secured by a real estate mortgage on a portion of its property. The mortgage required Traverse to secure fire insurance, which it did from Central Surety and Insurance Company (CSIC). After a fire destroyed the insured building, CSIC offered a settlement far less than the policy amount. Traverse sued both CSIC and DBP in the RTC of Quezon City (Civil Case No. Q-37497) for the insurance claim.
During the pendency of that case, DBP extrajudicially foreclosed the mortgage due to Traverse’s loan default. Traverse then filed a new complaint in the RTC of Tarlac (Civil Case No. 7432) to annul the foreclosure sale, arguing the foreclosure was void as only a portion of the property was mortgaged and that its default was excused by a fortuitous event (the fire). This Tarlac case was dismissed for forum-shopping, a decision affirmed by the Court of Appeals.
ISSUE
Whether the Court of Appeals correctly dismissed Traverse’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction, ruling that the appeal raised only questions of law, not questions of fact.
RULING
Yes, the Court of Appeals was correct. The Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal. The core determination was whether Traverse’s appeal to the CA involved questions of fact or purely questions of law. A question of law exists when the doubt concerns the correct application of law or legal principles to a given set of facts, which are themselves not in dispute. A question of fact arises when the issue involves the truth or falsity of alleged facts.
The issues Traverse raised in its appeal—specifically, whether its second action was barred by lis pendens or constituted forum-shopping, and whether the trial court erred in ordering case consolidation—were exclusively legal in nature. These issues required no re-examination of the evidence’s probative value but only an analysis of the complaints and the application of procedural rules on forum-shopping and consolidation. Since the appeal raised only questions of law, the proper remedy was a petition for review on certiorari directly to the Supreme Court under Rule 45, not an appeal to the Court of Appeals. Therefore, the CA correctly dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.