REXLON REALTY V. CA (REMEDIAL)

Pursuant to Section 2 Rule 47 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, the grounds to annul a judgment of a lower court are:

• extrinsic fraud; and
• lack of jurisdiction.

We find that the issuance of a new owner;s duplicate certificates of title by the trial court in favor of respondent David is indeed tainted with extrinsic fraud.

However, the document denominated as "Absolute Deed of Sale" where the signature of respondent David as seller has not been controverted, states that the latter has fully received payment for the said dale and has bound himself to cede and deliver to petitioner Rexlon as vendee, his rights, interest, participation and title over the said parcels of land.

The Court is presented in the case at bar with the issue of whether such misrepresentation or fraud of David can be characterized as extrinsic fraud so as to merit the annulment of the trial court's decision granting David's petition for the issuance of new owner's duplicate certificates.

Extrinsic fraud contemplates a situation where a litigant commits acts outside of the trial of the case, "the effect of which prevents a party from having a trial, a real contest, or from presenting all of his case to the court, or where it operates upon matters pertaining, not to the judgment itself, but to the manner in which it was procured so that there is not a fair submission of the controversy.

The overriding consideration is that the fraudulent scheme of the prevailing litigant prevented a party from having his day in court. Hence, the Court has held that extrinsic fraud is present in cases where a party:

1. is deprived of his interest in land, because of a deliberate misrepresentation that the lots are not contested when in fact they are;
2. applies for and obtains adjudication and registration in the name of a co-owner of land which he knows has not been allotted to him in partition;
3. intentionally conceals facts and connives with the land inspector, so that the latter would include in the survey plan the bed of a navigable stream;
4. deliberately makes a false statement that there are no other claims;
5. induces another not to oppose an application;
6. deliberately fails to notify the party entitled to notice; or
7. misrepresents the identity of the lot to the true owner, causing the latter to withdraw his opposition.

Fraud, in these cases, goes into and affects the jurisdiction of the court; thus, a decision rendered on the basis of such fraud becomes subject to annulment.

In consonance with the Straight Times case, holding that "the use of forged instruments or perjured testimonies during trial is not an extrinsic fraud, because such evidence does not preclude the participation of any party in the proceedings. While a perjured testimony may prevent a fair and just determination of a case, it does not bar the adverse party from rebutting or opposing the use of such evidence. Further, it should be stressed that extrinsic fraud pertains to an act committed outside of the trial, The alleged fraud in this case was perpetrated during trial," David's act of misrepresentation, though not constituting extrinsic fraud, is still an evidence of absence of jurisdiction. We held that if an owner's duplicate copy of a certificate of title has not been lost but is in fact in the possession of another person, the reconstituted title is void and the court rendering the decision has not acquired jurisdiction.

In the case at bar, the authenticity and genuineness of the owner's duplicate in the possession of Rexlon and the Absolute Deed of Sale in its favor have not been disputed. As there is no proof to support actual loss of the said owner's duplicate copies of said certificate of title, the trial court did not acquire jurisdiction and the new titles issued in replacement thereof are void.