Title
Reyes, Sr. vs. Heirs of Forlales
Case
G.R. No. 193075
Decision Date
Jun 20, 2016
Unlawful detainer suit dismissed; one-year prescriptive period lapsed from first demand, res judicata applied; proper remedy was accion publiciana.
land possession
ejectment
unlawful detainer
A

Case Summary (G.R. No. 79886)

Factual Background

The respondents alleged ownership of a parcel of land that included a disputed portion where the petitioners had erected a house. The petitioners claimed occupancy since 1978 and executed an affidavit dated September 18, 1988 acknowledging that their stay was "with the permission of" Independence Forlales Fetalvero as administrator and "subject to the terms and conditions imposed by the rightful owner." Mercedes Forlales Bautista was the adjudicated heir of Deogracias Forlales. After petitions and letters, Independence demanded that the petitioners vacate on May 28, 1993. Respondents filed an ejectment complaint on August 28, 1997, which the MCTC dismissed on September 29, 1997 for being filed beyond one year from the May 28, 1993 demand, the dismissal becoming final October 15, 1997. In December 2004 respondents observed construction of a two-storey concrete house by the petitioners; the building official issued a notice dated December 15, 2004 which the petitioners ignored. Respondents filed a barangay complaint May 16, 2005, sent a formal demand May 27, 2005, and thereafter filed the ejectment complaint that gave rise to Civil Case No. OD-806, docketed in MCTC as Civil Case No. O3-288.

Trial Court Proceedings

The MCTC, in its July 20, 2007 decision, found that the petitioners occupied the lot belonging to the respondents and rejected the petitioners' claim of ownership as contradicted by their affidavit and communications. The MCTC ruled that the earlier ejectment case was dismissed for being filed beyond the one-year period and thus was not adjudicated on the merits; it ordered the petitioners to vacate, to remove improvements, and to pay fair rental value at the rate of P800.00 per month from May 27, 2005. On appeal, the RTC affirmed on September 2, 2008, holding that the petitioners' possession from May 28, 1993 to May 27, 2005 constituted possession by mere tolerance and that the one-year prescriptive period for an unlawful detainer suit should be counted from the last demand, May 27, 2005. The RTC denied reconsideration.

Court of Appeals Ruling

The Court of Appeals affirmed the rulings of the lower courts in its October 27, 2009 decision and by resolution on July 9, 2010. The CA agreed with the RTC that the petitioners’ occupancy between May 28, 1993 and May 27, 2005 was by mere tolerance and that the earlier ejectment complaint’s dismissal rested on technical grounds and was not a decision on the merits. The CA denied the petitioners’ motion for reconsideration, prompting the Rule 45 petition to the Supreme Court.

The Parties' Contentions

The petitioners contended that the one-year period for filing an unlawful detainer suit ran from May 28, 1993, the date of the respondents’ first formal demand, and that the CA erred in treating their possession from 1993 to 2005 as tolerance. They argued that the respondents’ filing of an ejectment complaint on August 28, 1997 evidenced that respondents considered possession unlawful earlier than 2005. The petitioners warned that counting the one-year period from the last demand would allow plaintiffs to preserve the period at will by issuing successive demands. They also invoked res judicata because the first ejectment complaint had been dismissed for being filed beyond one year from the May 28, 1993 demand and thus allegedly adjudicated the material question. Finally, the petitioners disputed the precise lot identification and pointed to the incomplete verification survey as undermining respondents’ proof of location. The respondents maintained that the petitioners’ possession was initially by tolerance, that the petitioners themselves characterized their stay as temporary in the 1988 affidavit and the 1989 note, and that the one-year period should be counted from the last demand of May 27, 2005.

Issues Presented

The principal legal questions were whether the complaint filed October 27, 2005 was properly characterized as an action for forcible entry or for unlawful detainer, whether the ejectment action was barred by prescription, whether the earlier dismissal operated as res judicata, and whether the CA and trial courts correctly applied the law to the established facts.

Ruling of the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court granted the Rule 45 petition and limited its review to legal issues because questions of fact were binding where supported by the record. The Court accepted the lower courts' factual finding that the petitioners occupied land recognized as belonging to the respondents. The Court reversed and set aside the CA decision and resolution, dismissed the October 27, 2005 complaint for ejectment as time-barred, and ordered costs against the respondents.

Legal Basis and Reasoning

The Court expounded the established distinction under Rule 70 between forcible entry and unlawful detainer. A forcible entry action lies where a defendant’s occupation was illegal from the outset, and the one-year period to file runs from the date of forcible entry. An unlawful detainer action lies where initial possession was lawful by contract or tolerance but became unlawful upon termination of the right to possess, and the one-year period runs from the date of the last demand to vacate. The Court reiterated that the nature of the action is determined from the complaint’s allegations and cited authorities that prescribe specific allegations necessary to sustain an unlawful detainer claim. The Court examined the complaint and the record and concluded that, contrary to the lower courts’ characterization, respondents treated the petitioners’ possession as unlawful as early as May 28, 1993 and thereafter pursued ejectment in August 1997. The Court invoked Sarona v. Villegas to emphasize that tolerance must exist from the inception of possession for an unlawful detainer classification to apply; otherwise a forcible entry action cannot be disguised as unlawful detainer to evade the one-year rule. The petitioners’ continued occupation after May 28, 1993 was not mere tolerance because the respondents had already demanded repossession. The filing of the first ejectment complaint in 1997—filed four years after the 1993 demand—showed that the respondents regarded possession as unlawful from 1993, and the one-year period therefore ran from that date. The Court also reasoned that allowing a plaintiff to renew the one-year period by issuing a later formal demand after dismissal would permit circumvention of the statutory limitation and frustrate the summary nature of ejectment remedies. The Court relied on Desbarats v. Vda. De Laureano to justify reckoning the one-year period from the first demand where the plaintiff had already treated possession as unlawful a

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