G.R. No. L-27995 June 28, 1974
ISLAND SAVINGS BANK, petitioner-appellant, vs. HON. AMBROSIO M. GERALDEZ, Presiding Judge, Branch VII, City Court of Manila, and JOSE H. MENDOZA and LAURA P. MENDOZA, respondents-appellees.

FACTS

The spouses Jose H. Mendoza and Laura P. Mendoza filed an ejectment complaint against Island Savings Bank in the City Court of Manila. They alleged ownership of a building and lot leased to the Bank, and that the Bank failed to pay rentals from June 1966 and refused to vacate. The Bank, in its answer, admitted the lease but denied liability. It raised a special defense claiming ownership, alleging a verbal agreement where the spouses sold the building to it, and that the written lease had been novated by another verbal agreement changing the subject and rental. The Bank also challenged the city court’s jurisdiction, asserting the issue was one of ownership.
Subsequently, the Bank filed a separate complaint for specific performance against the spouses in the Court of First Instance of Rizal, seeking to compel the execution of a deed of sale for the building. Back in the ejectment case, instead of presenting evidence, the Bank filed a motion to dismiss on grounds of litis pendentia (another action pending) and that the ownership issue in the Rizal case was a prejudicial question. The city court denied the motion, ruling that a defense of ownership does not divest it of jurisdiction over the ejectment case. The Bank’s motion for reconsideration was also denied.

ISSUE

Whether the Court of First Instance of Manila correctly dismissed the Bank’s petition for certiorari and prohibition, which sought to annul the city court’s order denying the motion to dismiss the ejectment case.

RULING

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal as moot and academic. The legal logic is grounded on the principle that courts will not determine questions that no longer present an actual controversy or where no effective relief can be granted. The record showed that after the Court of First Instance dissolved the preliminary injunction it had earlier issued, the city court proceeded to try and decide the ejectment case against the Bank, whose appeal from that decision was then pending in the Court of First Instance. Consequently, the act sought to be enjoined—the city court’s proceeding with the ejectment case—had already been completed. The specific question of whether the city court gravely abused its discretion in denying the motion to dismiss was rendered unnecessary for resolution. An appellate court’s decision on that procedural issue would have no practical effect, as the main case had already progressed to a judgment on the merits. Therefore, the appeal was dismissed.