GR 80599; (September, 1989) (Digest)
G.R. No. 80599 September 15, 1989
ERNESTINA CRISOLOGO-JOSE, petitioner, vs. COURT OF APPEALS and RICARDO S. SANTOS, JR., respondents.
FACTS
Ricardo S. Santos, Jr., Vice-President of Mover Enterprises, Inc., co-signed a corporate check for P45,000 payable to Ernestina Crisologo-Jose as a replacement for an earlier check issued by the corporation’s president, Atty. Oscar Benares, in accommodation of a client. The replacement check was dishonored for insufficiency of funds. Consequently, Crisologo-Jose filed a criminal complaint for violation of Batas Pambansa Blg. 22 against both Benares and Santos. During the preliminary investigation, Santos, using a cashier’s check provided by Benares, attempted to tender payment to Crisologo-Jose for the dishonored check, but she refused to accept it. Santos then encashed the cashier’s check and consigned the amount with the trial court.
The trial court dismissed Santos’s complaint for consignation, holding it inapplicable. The Court of Appeals reversed this decision, ruling that Santos was an accommodation party liable on the instrument and that his consignation was valid. The appellate court also made pronouncements regarding the potential extinction of Santos’s criminal liability due to the payment, which Crisologo-Jose assailed in this petition.
ISSUE
The primary issue is whether Santos is an accommodation party under the Negotiable Instruments Law, personally liable on the dishonored check, such that his consignation of the amount was valid. A secondary issue concerns the propriety of the Court of Appeals’ remarks on the pending criminal case.
RULING
The Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals’ decision with modification. Santos is an accommodation party under Section 29 of the Negotiable Instruments Law. He signed the check without receiving value, for the purpose of lending his name to accommodate the corporation’s president, Atty. Benares, and his clients. His liability is personal and solidary to a holder for value, irrespective of his signing in a corporate capacity, as an accommodation party is akin to a surety. Since Santos was a debtor obligated to pay the value of the check, his valid tender of payment, which was unjustifiably refused by Crisologo-Jose, entitled him to consign the money to extinguish his obligation, in accordance with Article 1256 of the Civil Code.
However, the Supreme Court set aside the Court of Appeals’ pronouncements regarding the effect of consignation on the pending criminal case for Batas Pambansa Blg. 22. The Court held it was improper for the appellate court to preempt the criminal court’s determination on issues such as knowledge of insufficiency of funds and the effect of payment on criminal liability. These matters are alien to the civil case on consignation and must be resolved exclusively in the criminal proceedings.