GR 77083; (August, 1990) (Digest)
G.R. No. 77083 , August 2, 1990
METROPOLITAN BANK AND TRUST COMPANY, petitioner, vs. HON. COURT OF APPEALS, HON. JOSE C. DE GUZMAN, as Judge, RTC-Quezon City, Branch XCIII and CLODUALDO VICENTE, respondents.
FACTS
Spouses Clodualdo and Esperanza Vicente obtained a P100,000 loan from Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company (Metrobank), executing a promissory note and a chattel mortgage over a payloader and a dumptruck as security. Upon the spouses’ default, Metrobank attempted to foreclose but could not locate the mortgaged chattels. Consequently, the bank filed a criminal complaint for violation of Article 319 of the Revised Penal Code (Removal, Sale or Pledge of Mortgaged Property) against Clodualdo Vicente. After trial, the Regional Trial Court acquitted Vicente due to insufficiency of evidence, finding that he did not remove the properties to another province or city without the bank’s consent. The trial court did not award any civil liability arising from the criminal charge. Metrobank appealed the civil aspect to the Court of Appeals, which dismissed the appeal, ruling that the civil liability arising from the crime could not be awarded since the act constituting the crime was not proven to exist.
ISSUE
Whether the Court of Appeals erred in dismissing the appeal and in not adjudging the private respondent civilly liable to the petitioner bank.
RULING
The Supreme Court granted the petition. The legal logic proceeds from a clear distinction between two sources of obligation: one ex delicto (from the crime) and one ex contractu (from the contract). Under Rule 111 of the Rules of Court, the extinction of the penal action does not extinguish the civil liability unless the final judgment declares that the fact from which the civil liability might arise did not exist. Here, the acquittal was based on the finding that the fact constitutive of the crime of removal of mortgaged property did not occur. Therefore, no civil liability arising from that criminal act could be imposed.
However, the Court ruled that a separate civil liability from the contract of loan persists. The records, including Vicente’s own judicial admission, unequivocally established the existence and due execution of the promissory note and the fact of non-payment. This contractual obligation was not extinguished by the acquittal. The Court of Appeals, while recognizing this liability, erroneously required Metrobank to institute a separate civil action to recover the loan. The Supreme Court found this requirement unnecessary and inefficient, as all facts pertaining to the loan had already been fully ventilated and established in the criminal proceedings. To compel a separate suit would constitute a needless duplication of litigation, clog court dockets, and waste time and resources. Thus, the Court ordered Vicente to pay Metrobank the P100,000 loan with legal interest from 1983, setting aside the resolutions of the Court of Appeals.