G.R. No. 168655 - J. CASIM CONSTRUCTION SUPPLIES, INC., VS. REGISTRAR OF DEEDS OF LAS PIÑAS. INTESTATE ESTATE OF BRUNEO F. CASIM, (PURPORTED) INTERVENOR. D E C I S I O N - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

Accordingly, Section 14, Rule 13 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure authorizes the trial court to cancel a notice of lis pendens where it is properly shown that the purpose of its annotation is for molesting the adverse party, or that it is not necessary to protect the rights of the party who caused it to be annotated. Be that as it may, the power to cancel a notice of lis pendens is exercised only under exceptional circumstances, such as: where such circumstances are imputable to the party who caused the annotation; where the litigation was unduly prolonged to the prejudice of the other party because of several continuances procured by petitioner; where the case which is the basis for the lis pendens notation was dismissed for non prosequitur on the part of the plaintiff; or where judgment was rendered against the party who caused such a notation. In such instances, said notice is deemed ipso facto cancelled. [28] In theorizing that the RTC of Las Piñas City, Branch 253 has the inherent power to cancel the notice of lis pendens that was incidentally registered in relation to Civil Case No. 2137, a case which had been decided by the RTC of Makati City, Branch 62 and affirmed by the Supreme Court on appeal, petitioner advocates that the cancellation of such a notice is not always ancillary to a main action. The argument fails. From the available records, it appears that the subject notice of lis pendens had been recorded at the instance of Bruneo F. Casim (Bruneo) in relation to Civil Case No. 2137 [29] î one for annulment of sale and recovery of real property î which he filed before the RTC of Makati City, Branch 62 against the spouses Jesus and Margarita Casim, predecessors-in-interest and stockholders of petitioner corporation. That case involved the property subject of the present case, then covered by TCT No. 30459. At the close of the trial on the merits therein, the RTC of Makati rendered a decision adverse to Bruneo and dismissed the complaint for lack of merit. [30] Aggrieved, Bruneo lodged an appeal with the Court of Appeals, docketed as CA-G.R. CV No. 54204, which reversed and set aside the trial court's decision. [31] Expectedly, the spouses Jesus and Margarita Casim elevated the case to the Supreme Court, docketed as G.R. No. 151957, but their appeal was dismissed for being filed out of time. [32] A necessary incident of registering a notice of lis pendens is that the property covered thereby is effectively placed, until the litigation attains finality, under the power and control of the court having jurisdiction over the case to which the notice relates. [33] In this sense, parties dealing with the given property are charged with the knowledge of the existence of the action and are deemed to take the property subject to the outcome of the litigation. [34] It is also in this sense that the power possessed by a trial court to cancel the notice of lis pendens is said to be inherent as the same is merely ancillary to the main actio