G.R. No. 268546 - An Waray Party-List vs. Commission on Elections

Plaintiff, Rosita Veloso de Olayvar, filed a complaint in the Court of First Instance of Leyte seeking support for herself and her four children, along with a petition for support pendente lite.
Defendant, Aristoteles Olayvar, in his answer, raised a special defense by alleging that a legal separation case, grounded on adultery, was pending between the same parties in the Court of First Instance of Cebu.

The legal separation case was instituted earlier than the support case and was based on allegations of adultery.
This case incidentally involved the issue of support, as the right of the plaintiff to demand support was at stake.
Initially, the court in Leyte decided to hold the support proceedings in abeyance until the legal separation case in Cebu was resolved, stating that the latter should have priority to determine the rights of the parties regarding support.

The court later modified its prior ruling to ensure that, due to the potentially long duration of the legal separation case, the matter of support receive preferential consideration.
Despite this modification, the defendant moved for a reconsideration of the ruling and, upon failure to secure it, filed a motion to dismiss the support action.

The defendant’s motion to dismiss was founded on Rule 8, Section 1(d), which provides that a complaint may be dismissed when there is another action pending between the same parties for the same cause.
The requisites for such dismissal include:

Identity of parties, or at least representation of the same interests in both actions;
Identity of rights asserted and relief prayed for, where both are founded on the same set of facts;
The prospect that a judgment rendered in one would be conclusive (res judicata) in the other.

The support claim involved not only the plaintiff but also her children, while the legal separation case revolved around adultery which inherently impacts the issue of support;
The facts of marital infidelity and the neglect of marital duties underpinned the support claim, whereas the legal separation case involved allegations of adultery by the plaintiff herself;
Relevant Civil Code provisions (Article 303(4) on cessation of support and Article 921 regarding disinheritance when a spouse gives cause for legal separation) further underscore that the issues in both cases were substantially identical.

The two cases (support and legal separation) are intertwined with the same underlying matters regarding marital conduct and the entitlement to support.
The legal separation case, being earlier, effectively precludes the possibility of determining the support issues independently without causing duplication of litigation.

Whether the action for support should be dismissed on the basis that there is another pending action (the legal separation case) between the same parties involving the same subject matter.
Whether the requisites stipulated by Rule 8, Section 1(d) are satisfied in this instance, namely:

Identity of parties or their interests in both actions;
Identity of the rights asserted and the relief prayed for, based on the same factual matrix;
The expectation that a judgment in one of the actions would preclude any further litigation in the other due to res judicata.

Whether pursuing both actions simultaneously would result in duplicity of judicial proceedings and inconsistent judgments.