Petitioners filed a complaint against respondents for damages claiming respondents started erecting a barbed-wire fence on petitioners' land. Respondents claimed they owned the land according to their title certificate. The trial court ordered a survey which found the respondents owned the land. The trial court then dismissed the case. The Court of Appeals and Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the petitioners' case was an impermissible collateral attack on the title certificate, rather than a direct proceeding allowed by law to challenge a title certificate. Therefore, the trial court properly dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction.
Petitioners filed a complaint against respondents for damages claiming respondents started erecting a barbed-wire fence on petitioners' land. Respondents claimed they owned the land according to their title certificate. The trial court ordered a survey which found the respondents owned the land. The trial court then dismissed the case. The Court of Appeals and Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the petitioners' case was an impermissible collateral attack on the title certificate, rather than a direct proceeding allowed by law to challenge a title certificate. Therefore, the trial court properly dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction.
Petitioners filed a complaint against respondents for damages claiming respondents started erecting a barbed-wire fence on petitioners' land. Respondents claimed they owned the land according to their title certificate. The trial court ordered a survey which found the respondents owned the land. The trial court then dismissed the case. The Court of Appeals and Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the petitioners' case was an impermissible collateral attack on the title certificate, rather than a direct proceeding allowed by law to challenge a title certificate. Therefore, the trial court properly dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction.
Petitioner spouses de Pedro filed a Complaint for Damages with
Prayer for Preliminary Injunction against respondents Romasan Development Corporation and Manuel Ko. The complaint stated that the spouses De Pedro were the registered owners of a parcel of land; that the respondents started putting up a barbed-wire fence on the perimeter of the adjacent property. The respondents allege that they were owners of the land as evidenced by a TCT. The trial court issued an order to have a relocation survey of the property in order to verify its location. Based on the report, the respondents filed a Manifestation/Motion to Dismiss, averring that there was no legal or factual basis for the complaint as shown by the findings of the survey team; hence, the petitioners had no cause of action against them. Trial court granted the motion to dismiss. The petitioners filed a motion for reconsideration of the order, contending it was premature for the court to dismiss the complaint without affording them the right to adduce their evidence on their claim for damages. Petition was denied. The CA affirmed the decision of the trial court. The CA held that the petitioners had every opportunity to question and object to the composition of the survey team before the trial court; since they failed to do so, they cannot now be allowed to do the same on appeal. According to the CA, it could not take judicial notice of the alleged cases filed against the chairman of the survey team since this was not one of the matters which the courts could take judicial notice of, whether mandatory or directory. The SC in denying the petition held that a certificate of title, once registered, should not thereafter be impugned, altered, changed, modified, enlarged or diminished except in a direct proceeding permitted by law. The resolution of the issue is, thus, not dependent on the report of the survey team filed in the trial court. The action of the petitioners against the respondents, based on the material allegations of the complaint, is one for recovery of possession of the subject property and damages. However, such action is not a direct, but a collateral attack of the TCT. Neither did the respondents directly attack the OCT in their answer to the complaint. Although the respondents averred in said answer, by way of special and affirmative defenses, that the subject property is covered by a TCT issued in the name of the respondent corporation, and as such the said respondent is entitled to the possession thereof to the exclusion of the petitioners, such allegation does not constitute
a direct attack on the, but is likewise a collateral attack thereon.
Thus, the court a quo had no jurisdiction to resolve the decisive issue raised by the parties in the trial court.
Richard T. Bartholomew and Grace M. Bartholomew, His Wife, Robert Chamberlain and Sheila Chamberlain, His Wife, James T. Doehne, Harry T. Friebel and Geraldine Friebel, His Wife, Robert Hutnich and Gladys Hutnich, His Wife, Robert Kirk and Ruth Kirk, His Wife, Conrad Meier and Mary Lou Meier, His Wife, George W. Storin and Ann Storin, His Wife, William A. Thorpe and Margaret Thorpe, His Wife, Stanley Van Dusen and Loweta Van Dusen, His Wife, Robert Van Dusen, Suing on Behalf of Themselves and All Others Similarly Situated v. Northampton National Bank of Easton, Easton, Pennsylvania, Merchants National Bank of Allentown, Allentown, Pennsylvania, American Bank and Trust Company of Reading, Reading, Pennsylvania, National Realty Investment Corp., Newfoundland, Pennsylvania and Poconos Skyland Development Company, Inc., Newfoundland, Pennsylvania, Individually and Trading as Castle Kress L & L Equities, Inc., Newfoundland, Pennsylvania, Individually, and Trading as Raven Hill Forest, Wayne