G.R. No. L-19249; February 28, 1963
CRISPINA GUANZON, ET AL., plaintiffs-appellants, vs. FERNANDO MAPA, defendant-appellee.

FACTS

The plaintiffs-appellants, Crispina Guanzon et al., initially filed a complaint for the recovery of a parcel of land against defendant-appellee Fernando Mapa, docketed as Civil Case No. 4666 in the Court of First Instance (CFI) of Negros Occidental. After the plaintiffs’ counsel sought multiple postponements of the trial without any such requests from the defendant, the trial court issued an Order dated October 5, 1959. The dispositive portion of this Order stated: “WHEREFORE, the plaintiffs’ motion for postponement is denied and this case is hereby dismissed for lack of interest. The defendant’s counterclaim is likewise dismissed, without prejudice.”
Subsequently, on November 29, 1959, the plaintiffs filed a second complaint for the recovery of the same land against the same defendant, docketed as Civil Case No. 5557. The defendant moved to dismiss this second complaint on the ground of res judicata, arguing that the dismissal in the first case was a dismissal with prejudice that barred the re-filing of the action. The plaintiffs opposed, contending that the dismissal was without prejudice, as indicated by the phrase “without prejudice” in the order, which they argued modified the dismissal of both the complaint and the counterclaim.

ISSUE

The sole legal issue is the correct interpretation of the Order dated October 5, 1959, specifically whether the dismissal of the complaint in Civil Case No. 4666 was with prejudice (on the merits) or without prejudice.

RULING

The Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s order dismissing the second complaint, ruling that the dismissal in the first case was with prejudice and thus constituted a bar under the principle of res judicata. The Court applied Section 3, Rule 30 of the Rules of Court, which provides that a dismissal not expressly stated to be without prejudice is understood to be with prejudice and shall have the effect of an adjudication upon the merits.
The Court analyzed the dispositive portion of the October 5, 1959 Order. It held that the phrase “without prejudice” clearly and exclusively modified only the dismissal of the defendant’s counterclaim, as stated in the second independent sentence of the dispositive portion. The first sentence, which ordered the dismissal of the complaint “for lack of interest,” contained no such qualifying phrase. The Court found the plaintiffs’ grammatical argument—that the word “likewise” linked the two sentences so that “without prejudice” applied to both—to be untenable. The two sentences were distinct, each with its own subject and modifier. The Court emphasized that the trial judge who issued the order had explicitly interpreted it as a dismissal with prejudice for the complaint, and this clarification was entitled to respect. Since the dismissal of the complaint was not expressly made “without prejudice,” it was, by operation of the Rules, a dismissal with prejudice that barred the subsequent action for the same cause.