G.R. No. L-9698; January 6, 1915
AGAPITO NAPA, petitioner, vs. JOHN P. WEISSENHAGEN, acting judge of the Court of First Instance of Surigao, ET AL., respondents.

FACTS:
In February 1913, an action for the summary recovery of possession of land under the Code of Civil Procedure was commenced in the justice’s court of Gigaquit, Surigao. The respondents (Julian Larong and Hermenegildo Bayla) were the plaintiffs, and the petitioner, Agapito Napa, was the defendant. The justice’s court decided in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered the delivery of possession on April 14, 1913. Napa appealed the decision to the Court of First Instance (CFI) on April 29, 1913. In the CFI, the appellees (Larong and Bayla) moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that it was not perfected within the time required by law. The CFI granted the motion and dismissed the appeal. Napa then filed this petition for a writ of certiorari, seeking to annul the CFI’s order dismissing his appeal, arguing that the CFI acted without jurisdiction in doing so.

ISSUE:
Whether a writ of certiorari is the proper remedy to correct the Court of First Instance’s order dismissing an appeal from a justice’s court, on the ground that such dismissal was an act in excess of jurisdiction.

RULING:
No. The petition for certiorari is dismissed.

The Supreme Court held that the CFI had jurisdiction over the subject matter (the appealed case) and the parties. The authority to hear and decide a case includes the power to rule on all questions pertinent to it, including a motion to dismiss the appeal. Whether the CFI’s decision to grant the motion to dismiss was correct or erroneous is a question within the exercise of its jurisdiction. The writ of certiorari is confined solely to the correction of defects of jurisdiction (i.e., acts performed without or in excess of jurisdiction) and cannot be used to correct mere errors of judgment, which are correctible only by appeal. Since the CFI acted within its jurisdiction in entertaining and granting the motion to dismiss the appeal, its order, even if potentially erroneous, cannot be nullified via certiorari. The fact that the original complaint in the justice’s court may have resembled an ejectment action or that its judgment contained potentially unauthorized provisions does not affect the CFI’s jurisdiction over the appealed case.