G.R. No. L-7705




Republic of the Philippines SUPREME COURT Manila EN BANC G.R. No. L-7705 November 21, 1912 ELIAS ORO, plaintiff-appellant, vs. LEOCADIO PAJARILLO, defendant-appellant. Bruce, Lawrence, Ross and Block, for appellant. Simeon Dadivas, for appellee. ARELLANO, C.J.: A question has been presented in the Court of First Instance of Capiz regarding the admissability of a civil action arising ex delicto, without deliction upon the judgment of conviction rendered in the original case for the crime committed. Leocadio Pajarillo and twelve other persons were charged with the crime of robbery in a gang for having seized personal property amounting to several thousand pesos belonging to Elias Oro. Case No. 970 was begun in said court on a criminal complaint and prosecuted against Onofre Odruña and eight other defendants; but Leocadio Pajarillo and three more of them were excluded from the complaint, because they were already serving sentences of life imprisonment in Bilibid Prison for another crime, to wit, murder. On December 16, 1910, Elias Oro exercised his right of civil action arising from that crime of robbery in a gang in order to secure restitution of the property stolen or reparation and indemnity for damages. But counsel for Leocadio Pajarillo by a motion presented on December 28, 1910, asked for the suspension of this civil complaint, especially as "In connection with Leocadio Pajarillo no order of dismissal has been issued in said case No. 970 for robbery in a gang" and the success of the civil action arising from the crime of robbery in a gang, therein tried, must depend upon the outcome of this case No. 970. (B. of E., 7 and 8.) By order of January 17, 1911, the court passed upon the motion in conformity with the petition made therein, ordering, in accordance with articles 111 and 114 of the Spanish Law of Criminal Procedure of 1882, applicable in the present case, the suspension of the civil complaint until final judgment should be rendered in criminal case No. 970, for robbery in gang, with respect to the defendant Leocadio Pajarillo. (B. of E., 14 and 15.) But on May 13, 1911, the court ordered the dismissal of case No. 970, for robbery in a gang, with respect to Leocadio Pajarillo and his three accomplices (who were serving life sentences) and declared cancelled the bonds filed for said accused and the costs de oficio. (B. of E., 19.) On July 26, 1911, the plaintiff Elias Oro presented a motion requesting revocation of the order of January 17, 1911, wherein suspension of the civil complaint was ordered; by this motion raising the present question. The court refused the revocation asked and overruled the motion by its decree of August 7, 1911, to which the plaintiffs Elias Oro objected and appealed to this court by means of a bill of exception. The reason for denying revocation of the order of January 17, 1911 — that is, for not raising the suspension of the pending civil complaint — is that the order of dismissal on May 13, 1911, with respect to Leocadio Pajarillo and his accomplices, is not a final judgment and therefore prevents the presentation against them of a new complaint for the same crime, for said dismissal had to be ordered before any trial, before any answer to the complaint drawn up against these defendants, just as if it might be said that if at any time Leocadio Pajarillo and his accomplices in murder should be free from their life sentences, not having been placed in a real jeopardy in case No. 970, they could still be tried for the crime of robbery in a gang, from which the pending civil action arose, and it therefore follows that this would remain suspended, subject to such contingency, that is, the possibility that the criminal action for such robbery in a gang might be prosecuted at some more or less remote time, and until then, until possibility should have entirely disappeared, the civil action must remain in suspense, dependent, not upon a criminal case pending final judgment, but upon a criminal complaint merely possible at some indefinite time. Later on February 14, 1912, this Supreme Court rendered a judgment of execution on the oft-cited case No. 970, against Onofre Odruña¹ and accomplices for robbery in a gang, dismissing the complaint presented, with the costs de oficio, and ordering the defendants set free immediately. Thus was this case of robbery in a gang, perpetrated against Elias Oro, finally terminated. Dismissal was due to the defendants of the Amnesty Proclamation of the President of the United States of July 4, 1902. If Leocadio Pajarillo and his three accomplices had remained subject to said case No. 970, they would, like Onofre Odruña and his associates, have had the amnesty applied to them, and they must necessarily be regarded a priori in any possibility of a new complaint as included in the Amnesty Proclamation of the President of the United States. The trial court's order of May 13, 1911, wherein said case No. 970 was dismissed with respect to Leocadio Pajarillo and his accomplices, is final, firm, and in force. The decree of the same court of August 7, 1911, which is appealed from, must be revoked.lawph!l.net In accordance with article 130 of the Penal Code, criminal responsibility is extinguished: "1: . . . 3. By amnesty, which completely extinguishes the penalty and all of its effects." And in accordance with the said Law of Criminal Procedure, article 116 whereof has been cited extinction of the penal action does not carry with it extinction of the civil, unless the extinction proceeds from a declaration in a final judgment that the fact from which the civil might arise did not exist. In the other cases, the person entitled to the civil action may exercise it in the jurisdiction and in the proper civil action against the person who may be liable for restitution of the thing and reparation or indemnity for the damages suffered. The decree appealed from, of August 7, 1911, is hereby revoked, with the costs de oficio. Torres, Mapa, Johnson, Carson and Trent, JJ., concur. Footnotes 1. U. S. vs. Odruña (21 Phil. Rep., 452) The Lawphil Project - Arellano Law Foundation