Case Digest: CGR CORPORATION, et al. v. ERNESTO L. TREYES, JR. 522 SCRA 765 (2007)

CGR CORPORATION, et al. v. ERNESTO L. TREYES, JR. 522 SCRA 765 (2007)

The recoverable damages in forcible entry and detainer cases refer to “rents” or “the reasonable compensation for the use and occupation of the premises” or “fair rental value of the property” and attorney’s fees and costs. CGR Corporation, owned by Herman M. Benedicto and Alberto R. Benedicto, leased several hectares of public land, mostly consisting of fishponds, in Negros Occidental. Ernesto L. Treyes, Jr., with his men, forcibly entered the leased properties and barricaded the entrance to the fishponds, set up a barbed wire fence along the road going to CRG Corporation‘s fishponds, and harvested several tons of milkfish, fry and fingerlings. CGR filed with the Municipal Trial Court (MTC) in Sagay City separate complaints for Forcible Entry with Temporary Restraining Order with Preliminary Injunction and Damages and reserved a separate civil action. The MTC found Treyes and his men guilty of forcible entry. CGR filed a separate complaint alleging therein that he suffered damages for the actions of Treyes during and after the forcible entry. A claim for additional damages which arose from incidents occurring after the dispossession by Treyes of the premises was thereafter prayed for. The MTC awarded the claims of CGR.

ISSUE:

Whether or not additional damages can be awarded resulting from events that took place after Treyes left the property

HELD:

The Court held that the ―rents‖ or the ―reasonable compensation for the use of the premises or the fair rental value of the property and attorney‘s fees may be recovered through a separate action while the forcible entry case is pending. The recoverable damages in forcible entry and detainer cases refer to ―rents‖ or ―the reasonable compensation for the use and occupation of the premises‖ or ―fair rental value of the property‖ and attorney‘s fees and costs. There is no basis for the MTC to award actual, moral, and exemplary damages in view of the settled rule that in ejectment cases, the only damage that can be recovered is the fair rental value or the reasonable compensation for the use and occupation of the property. Considering that the only issue raised in ejectment is that of rightful possession, damages which could be recovered are those which the plaintiff could have sustained as a mere possessor, or those caused by the loss of the use and occupation of the property, and not the damages which he may have suffered but which have no direct relation to his loss of material possession. Other damages must thus be claimed in an ordinary action. As reflected in the allegations in the complaint for damages of CGR et al., it had to do with Treyes‘ alleged harvesting and carting away several tons of milkfish and other marine products in their fishponds, ransacking and destroying of a chapel built by CGR Corporation, and stealing religious icons and even decapitating the heads of some of them, after the act of dispossession had occurred. Restated in its bare essentials, the forcible entry case has one cause of action, namely, the alleged unlawful entry by petitioner into the leased premises out of which three (3) reliefs arose: (a) the restoration by the lessor of the possession of the leased premises to the lessee, (b) the claim for actual damages due to the losses suffered by private respondent such as the deterioration of perishable foodstuffs stored inside the premises and the deprivation of the use of the premises causing loss of expected profits; and, (c) the claim for attorney‘s fees and costs of suit. CGR Corporation‘s filing of an independent action for damages other than those sustained as a result of their dispossession or those caused by the loss of their use and occupation of their properties could not thus be considered as splitting of a cause of action.