GR 28380; (February 1976) (Digest)
G.R. No. L-28380 February 27, 1976
ENRIQUE A. DEFANTE, plaintiff-appellant, vs. HON. ANTONIO E. RODRIGUEZ, ATTY. RODOLFO E. MATEO, FRANCISCO TEJONES, LORETO TORRES and WILFREDO MONTES, defendants-appellees.
FACTS
Enrique A. Defante was the defendant in an ejectment suit (Civil Case No. 226) filed by the Municipality of Las Piñas on October 20, 1964. In that case, Municipal Judge Antonio E. Rodriguez issued a writ of preliminary mandatory injunction ordering Defante to vacate the eastern portion of a contested lot. Pursuant to Judge Rodriguez’s order dated December 20, 1966, the writ was enforced the following day by Atty. Rodolfo E. Mateo, Francisco Tejones, Loreto Torres, and Wilfredo Montes. Defante was ejected from the property, and his improvements were allegedly demolished during the enforcement.
On January 21, 1967, Defante filed a separate action for damages (Civil Case No. 847-R) in the Court of First Instance of Rizal against Judge Rodriguez and the four individuals who carried out the ejection. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss, which Judge Rodriguez adopted, citing lack of cause of action and lack of jurisdiction. Judge Francisco de la Rosa dismissed the complaint on March 2, 1967, ruling it was intimately connected with the still-pending ejectment suit in the municipal court. Defante appealed this dismissal order to the Supreme Court.
ISSUE
Whether the Court of First Instance correctly dismissed Defante’s separate action for damages against the judge and the enforcing officers on the ground that it was intimately connected with a pending ejectment case.
RULING
The Supreme Court did not reach the substantive merits of the appeal, as it was rendered moot and academic. During the pendency of the appeal, Defante’s counsel manifested to the Court that Defante had died. Furthermore, counsel stated that due to developments in a related registration case concerning the land subject of the original ejectment suit, Defante’s heirs were no longer interested in prosecuting the appeal. The defendants-appellees concurred, stating the appeal had become moot in view of Defante’s death and his own appeal in the underlying ejectment case.
The legal logic for dismissing the appeal rests on the judicial policy of avoiding rulings on abstract or hypothetical questions. Courts resolve only actual, live controversies that affect the rights of the litigants. With the death of the sole plaintiff-appellant and the express loss of interest by his successors, the appeal no longer presented a justiciable controversy. There was no surviving party with a legal interest to pursue the claim for damages. Consequently, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal for being moot and academic, without costs.