GR L 11329; (May, 1961) (Digest)
G.R. No. L-11329. May 31, 1961. CIPRIANO B. MOTOS, plaintiff-appellant, vs. ROBERTO SOLER, ET AL., defendants-appellees.
FACTS
This case involves a second motion for reconsideration filed by defendants-appellees (the Soler group) concerning procedural resolutions and the substantive dispositive part of the Supreme Court’s decision. The Court initially denied the appellees’ motion to modify the decision’s dispositive part, ruling it was filed out of time. The appellees successfully argued for reconsideration of that procedural denial, demonstrating that their motion was timely filed as the date of mailing, November 16, 1960, was within the granted extension period. A subsequent resolution from February 10, 1961, which denied a related motion for reconsideration, was also set aside in light of the reinstatement of the initial motion.
The core substantive motion sought to modify the dispositive part of the decision, which had granted plaintiff-appellant Cipriano B. Motos the right to repurchase a property for P119.92. The appellees argued the decision was incomplete because it did not order the case remanded to the trial court. They sought a remand to present evidence on the value of improvements they allegedly made on the property as possessors in good faith since acquiring it in 1955.
ISSUE
Whether the Supreme Court should modify its dispositive decision to remand the case to the lower court for the purpose of receiving evidence on the value of improvements made by the appellees.
RULING
The Court denied the motion to modify the dispositive part. The legal logic is rooted in the rules of procedure governing the presentation of claims and counterclaims. The main action was one for legal redemption filed by Motos to compel the appellees to allow him to repurchase the property. In their answer, the appellees confined their defense to contesting Motos’s right to repurchase under the Public Land Act and raising the defense of prescription. They did not set up any counterclaim for reimbursement of the value of improvements they introduced on the property during their possession.
The Court held that the value of improvements is a separate claim that should have been affirmatively pleaded and litigated in the trial court through a compulsory counterclaim. By failing to do so, the appellees are now barred from asserting that claim at this late stage. The Court cited established jurisprudence, including Berses v. Villanueva and Beltran vs. Valbuena, which hold that a defendant who fails to set up a counterclaim is deemed to have waived it and is precluded from raising it subsequently. Therefore, the decision correctly limited itself to the issue of the right to repurchase, and no remand for further evidence on improvements is warranted.