Valdez V. Ca G.R. No. 132424

VALDEZ v. CA G.R. No.
132424
Case Digest by: Janssen Rey P. Delantar
FACTS:
Spouses Valdez sought to nullify and set aside the Court of Appeal’s Decision
which reversed the judgment rendered in favor to them by the Regional Trial Court in an
unlawful detainer case that said spouses filed against Spouses Fabella.
In their complaint for unlawful detainer, petitioners alleged that they were the
registered owners of a piece of residential lot located in Antipolo, Rizal. According to
them, Spouses Fabella, without any color of title occupied the said lot by building their
house thereon, depriving petitioners of their rightful possession of the lot. Petitioners
orally asked Spouses Fabella to peacefully surrender the premises to them but the
Fabellas refused to vacate. In their answer, the Spouses Fabella contended that the
complaint failed to state that petitioners had prior physical possession of the property or
that they were the lessors of the former. Fabellas claimed ownership of the land on the
ground that they had been in open, continuous, and adverse possession thereof for more
than 30 years as attested by an ocular inspection report from the DENR.
In reversing the decision of the RTC, which affirmed in toto the ruling of the MTC
ordering private respondents to vacate the land, the Court of Appeals held that petitioners
failed to make a case for unlawful detainer because they failed to show that they had
given the private respondents the right to occupy the premises or that they had tolerated
private respondents’ possession of the same, which is a requirement in unlawful detainer
cases. It added that the allegations in petitioners’ complaint lack jurisdictional elements
for forcible entry which requires an allegation of prior material possession.
Hence, the instant petition. Petitioners claimed that the averments of their
complaint make out a case for unlawful detainer. They further contended that the
summary action for ejectment is the proper remedy available to the owner if another
occupies the land at the former’s tolerance or permission without any contract between
the two as the latter is bound by an implied promise to vacate the land upon demand by
the owner.
ISSUE:
1. Whether or not the allegations of the complaint clearly made out a case for
unlawful detainer.
2. Whether or not based on the allegations of the complaint, the MTC of Antipolo,
Rizal clearly has jurisdiction over the case.
RULING:
The Supreme Court ruled in the negative. To justify an action for unlawful
detainer, it is essential that the plaintiff’s supposed acts of tolerance must have been
present right from the start of the possession which is later sought to be recovered.
Otherwise, if the possession was unlawful from the start, an action for unlawful detainer
would be an improper remedy.
It is the nature of defendant’s entry into the land which determines the cause of
action, whether it is forcible entry or unlawful detainer. The jurisdictional facts must appear
on the face of the complaint. When the complaint fails to aver facts constitutive of forcible
entry or unlawful detainer, as where it does not state how entry was affected or how and
when dispossession started, the remedy should either be an accion publiciana or an
accion reivindicatoria in the proper regional trial court.
In this case, the allegations in the complaint did not contain any averment of fact
that would substantiate petitioners’ claim that they permitted or tolerated the occupation
of the property by respondents. The complaint contained only bare allegations that
"respondents without any color of title whatsoever occupies the land in question by
building their house in the said land thereby depriving petitioners the possession thereof."
Nothing has been said on how respondents’ entry was effected or how and when
dispossession started. This failure of petitioners to allege the key jurisdictional facts
constitutive of unlawful detainer is fatal. Since the complaint did not satisfy the
jurisdictional requirement of a valid cause for unlawful detainer, the municipal trial court
had no jurisdiction over the case.

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