G.R. No. L-18480; January 31, 1963
LEOPOLDO SALCEDO, petitioner, vs. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS and REMEDIOS V. RODRIGUEZ, respondents.

FACTS

Remedios V. Rodriguez filed a complaint against Leopoldo Salcedo in the Court of First Instance of Quezon to compel recognition and support for her alleged illegitimate child. Summons was served at Salcedo’s residence through his housemaid. Due to his failure to answer, he was declared in default, and a judgment was rendered against him in November 1956, ordering acknowledgment, support, and payment of damages. Salcedo claimed he first learned of the judgment only when an alias writ of execution was served in February 1958. He then filed motions to set aside the decision and the execution, which the trial court denied in September and October 1958, finding them filed out of time and lacking merit. Salcedo did not appeal these denial orders.
Subsequently, in May 1959, Salcedo filed a petition for certiorari in the Court of Appeals, challenging the service of summons and the trial court’s jurisdiction. The Court of Appeals dismissed the petition in November 1959, upholding the validity of the substituted service. Salcedo did not seek a review of this dismissal. Instead, in late 1959, he filed a notice of appeal and a motion for extension to file a record on appeal with the trial court, which were denied. The trial court then issued another alias writ of execution. Salcedo then filed a petition for mandamus in the Court of Appeals to compel approval of his record on appeal, which was also dismissed in May 1961. He now seeks a review of that dismissal.

ISSUE

Whether the Court of Appeals erred in dismissing the petition for mandamus, thereby upholding the trial court’s denial of Salcedo’s appeal and the issuance of the writ of execution.

RULING

The petition is without merit. The core legal issue—the validity of the service of summons and the trial court’s jurisdiction—had already been conclusively resolved against Salcedo through final orders. His initial motions for relief from the 1956 default judgment were denied by the trial court in 1958. He did not appeal these denials, allowing them to become final. His subsequent certiorari petition in the Court of Appeals, raising the identical jurisdictional challenge, was also dismissed in 1959, and he did not seek a review of that dismissal, rendering it final as well.
Consequently, the judgment on the merits and the orders denying his motions had long attained finality when he attempted to file a notice of appeal and record on appeal in late 1959. A mandamus to compel the approval of a record on appeal is only proper when the right to appeal is clear and the trial court unlawfully neglects a duty to approve it. Here, no such right existed because the judgment was already final and unappealable. The trial court correctly denied his motion for extension and dismissed his appeal. Therefore, the Court of Appeals committed no error in dismissing the mandamus petition and in ruling that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in issuing the execution orders. The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.