Hernandez v DBP (Civil Procedure)

Jose M. Hernandez v. DBP and CFI of Batangas

Facts:

·       Petitioner was an employee of defendant in its Legal Department for 21 years until his retirement due to illness;

·       Petitioner was awarded a lot (810 sq-m, type E) in respondent’s Housing Project in Quezon City;

·       However, more than a week thereafter, the Chief Accountant and Comptroller of the private respondent returned to the petitioner the checks he has paid pursuant to such award and informed him that the private respondent, through its Committee on Organization, Personnel and Facilities, had cancelled the award of the lot and hour previously awarded on the ground that:

(a)   He has already retired;

(b)   He has only an option to purchase said house and lot;

(c)   There are a big number of employees who have no houses or lots;

(d)   He has been given his retirement gratuity; that the awarding of the aforementioned house and lot in his favor would subserve the purpose;

·       Petitioner protested the cancellation and so filed a complaint in the CFI of Batangas, seeking annulment of the cancellation of the award of the lot and house in his favor and the restoration of all his rights thereto;

·       He contends that it is illegal and unwarranted because he has already a vested right thereto because of the award;

·       Private respondent filed a motion to dismiss based on improper venue, contending that since the petitioner’s action affects the title to a house and lot in Quezon city, the same should have been commenced in the CFI of Quezon City where the real property is located.

Lower court ruling:

CFI of Batangas: sustained the motion to dismiss based on improper venue.

*Case immediately elevated to the SC

Issue: WON the action of petitioner was improperly laid in the CFI of Batangas

Ruling: No, the case was not improperly filed in the CFI of Batangas.

The venue of actions or, more appropriately,  the county where the action is triable depends to a great extent on the nature of the action to be filed, whether it is real or personal.

Real action is one brought for the specific recovery of land, tenements, or hereditaments. A personal action is one brought for recovery of personal property, for the enforcement of some contract or recovery of damages for its breach, or for the recovery of damages for the commission of an injury to the person or property.

The court agrees that petitioner’s action is not a real but a personal action. As correctly insisted by petitioner, his action is one to declare null and void the cancellation of the lot and house in his favor which does not involve title and ownership over said properties but seeks to compel respondent to recognize that the award is a valid and subsisting one which cannot arbitrarily and unilaterally cancel and accordingly to accept the proffered payment in full which it had rejected and returned to petitioner.

Such an action is a personal action which may be properly brought by petitioner in his residence.

The dismissal is overturned and the suit is remanded for further proceedings.