“if the party desires the
court to take judicial notice of the record of another case, he should file the
necessary pleading for the purpose and give the other party the chance to be
heard on the matter.”
Facts
Gabriel Prieto and Zeferino
Arroyo are owners of parcels of land adjoining to each other. When Arroyo died,
the certificate of title in his name was cancelled and a transfer of
certificate of title was then issued to his heirs. The heirs of Arroyo filed a petition before
the CFI claiming that the technical description in their title does not conform
to the decision of the land registration court where the area given in their
title is less than 157 sq meters than to what they are entitled and thus prayed
for the correction of the description in their title. The court directed the
Register of Deeds to change the description in the transfer certificate of
title. Prieto now filed an action against the defendants with the petition to
annul the order made by the court claiming that a portion of his land was unjustly
added to the defendant’s title. But during the special proceeding Prieto and
his counsel failed to appear and the court issued an order dismissing the
petition for failure to prosecute.
Prieto filed an action for
annulment of the special proceeding and prayed to reconvey the 157 sq meters of
lot that was taken from him and was added to the title of the defendants. Defendants
move to dismiss the complaint on the ground of res judicata which the court
allowed. Prieto now contends that there is no res judicata and invoked the
court to have been erred in dismissing his first petition to annul the special
proceeding even when he did not appear in court as no parole evidence is needed
to support his petition where the matters concerning the land registration
proceeding are parts of the record of the court which are well within the
court’s judicial notice.
Issue:
Whether or not the court should have taken judicial notice on the land
registration case adjudicated in the same court instead of dismissing the first
petition to annul the special proceeding?
Ruling:
The Supreme Court held that as
a general rule,
courts are not authorized to take judicial notice in the adjudication of cases
pending before them, of the contents of other cases, even when such cases have
been tried or are pending in the same court, and notwithstanding the fact that
both cases may have been tried or are actually pending before the same judge. If
the party desires the court to take judicial notice of the record of another
case, he should file the necessary pleading for the purpose and give the other
party the chance to be heard on the matter instead of sending motion for
postponement of the hearing.
The court finds his argument
academic since no appeal was made from the order dismissing the said petition
thus the decision has become already final. Moreover, the court finds res
judicata as operative in the case since there are similar in the identity of
the parties, subject matter and cause of action in the two cases involved thus the
order of dismissal in the first petition now operates to bar the institution of
the second petition.
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