G.R. No. 260361 , October 25, 2023
PEDRO VIERNES, SUBSTITUTED BY HIS SURVIVING WIDOW AND CO-PETITIONER JOSEPHINE B. VIERNES, AND HIS SURVIVING CHILDREN, NAMELY, DARLINA V. PANGAN, DIVINA V. BUENO, AND DONALD B. VIERNES, PETITIONERS, VS. PINES COMMERCIAL CORPORATION, REPRESENTED BY ITS ADMINISTRATOR ATTY. MARISSA MADRID-DACAYANAN, RESPONDENT.

FACTS

Respondent Pines Commercial Corporation (Pines) filed an Amended Complaint for declaration of nullity of documents, cancellation of titles and real estate mortgage, and damages against petitioners, the spouses Viernes (later substituted by surviving widow and children), alleging that petitioners acquired four parcels of land in Baguio City using falsified documents while Pines remained in possession. Petitioners raised an affirmative defense of lack of capacity to sue, claiming Pines no longer existed and its representative, Atty. Marissa Madrid-Dacayanan, had no authority. The Regional Trial Court (RTC) denied petitioners’ Motion to Dismiss. On certiorari, the Court of Appeals (CA) annulled the RTC orders and dismissed the Amended Complaint in a Decision dated October 10, 2016, finding the authority of Atty. Dacayanan to represent Pines as doubtful. This CA Decision became final after the Supreme Court denied Pines’s petition. Petitioners then moved for issuance of a writ of execution and possession, arguing the dismissal affirmed their ownership and entitled them to possession. The RTC initially granted the motion and issued the writs but later, upon Pines’s motion, set aside its order and dissolved the writ of execution, ruling that the CA Decision merely dismissed the complaint and did not adjudicate ownership or possession. The CA affirmed the RTC’s orders dissolving the writ. Petitioners elevated the case to the Supreme Court, insisting the dismissal affirmed their ownership and, citing Baluyut v. Guiao and Pascual v. Daquioag, entitled them to possession.

ISSUE

Whether the final and executory Decision of the Court of Appeals, which dismissed Pines’s Amended Complaint on the ground of lack of authority of its representative, included the delivery of possession of the subject properties to petitioners as a necessary consequence.

RULING

No. The Supreme Court denied the petition. The Court held that the rule that a final judgment granting ownership necessarily includes the delivery of possession applies only when there is an adjudication of ownership in the legal sense and the defeated party has no other basis for claiming possession apart from the rejected claim of ownership. In this case, the CA’s October 10, 2016 Decision was confined to dismissing the Amended Complaint on the procedural ground of Pines’s representative’s lack of authority. It did not make any ruling on the merits regarding the validity of petitioners’ titles or their ownership of the properties. The dispositive portion solely ordered the dismissal of the complaint. Since there was no adjudication of ownership, the consequential relief of delivery of possession could not be deemed included in the judgment. The cases of Baluyut and Pascual were distinguished as therein, the judgments themselves decreed ownership. The Court further noted that petitioners, in their answer, only prayed for the dismissal of the complaint and did not seek affirmative relief for delivery of possession. Therefore, the enforcement of the final CA Decision is limited to the dismissal of the complaint, and petitioners are not entitled to a writ of possession based thereon.