Case Digest (G.R. No. 139325)
Facts:
Priscilla C. Mijares, Loretta Ann P. Rosales, Hilda B. Narciso, Sr. Mariani Dimaranan, SFIC, and Joel C. Lamangan v. Hon. Santiago Javier Ranada and the Estate of Ferdinand E. Marcos, G.R. No. 139325, April 12, 2005, Supreme Court Second Division, Tinga, J., writing for the Court.The petitioners (prominent alleged victims of human rights violations under the Marcos regime) were members of a plaintiff class in a class action filed in the United States District Court, District of Hawaii, which on February 3, 1995 rendered a Final Judgment awarding the class US$1,964,005,859.90; that judgment was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on December 17, 1996. On May 20, 1997 petitioners filed a complaint in the Regional Trial Court, Makati City (Makati RTC) to enforce that foreign Final Judgment against the Estate of Ferdinand E. Marcos.
The Marcos Estate moved to dismiss on grounds including nonpayment of the correct docket and filing fees, asserting that under Rule 141, Section 7(a) the filing fee should be computed on the total sum claimed and thus ran into hundreds of millions of pesos; petitioners countered that an action to enforce a foreign judgment is not capable of pecuniary estimation and therefore the lower fixed fee under Rule 141, Section 7(b) applied. On September 9, 1998 respondent Judge Santiago Javier Ranada dismissed the complaint without prejudice, holding that the subject matter was capable of pecuniary estimation and that the fee should be computed under Section 7(a), which produced an assessment of about P472,000,000.
Petitioners’ motion for reconsideration was denied on July 28, 1999, and they filed a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 in the Supreme Court seeking annulment of the dismissal and reinstatement of Civil Case No. 97-1052. The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) was permitted to in...(Subscriber-Only)
Issues:
- Is an action to enforce a foreign judgment capable of pecuniary estimation for purposes of computing filing fees under Rule 141?
- If capable of pecuniary estimation, which subsection of Section 7, Rule 141 governs the computation of the filing fee for a complaint to enforce a foreign judgment brought against an estate?
- Did respondent Judge Ranada commit grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction in dismissing the complaint for alleged nonpayment of correct filing fees?
- Does Section 11, Article III (free access to courts) require...(Subscriber-Only)
Ruling:
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Ratio:
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Doctrine:
- (Subscriber-Only)