the same, for which no independent civil action is granted in this Code or any special law, but the justice of the peace fi nds no reasonable grounds to believe that a crime has been committed, or the prosecuting attorney refuses or fails to institute criminal proceedings, the complainant may bring a civil action for damages against the alleged offender. Such civil action shall be supported by preponderance of evidence. Upon the defendant’s motion, the court may require the plaintiff to fi le a bond to indemnify the defendant in case the complaint should be found to be malicious.
If during the pendency of the civil action, an information should be presented by the prosecuting attorney, the civil action shall be suspended until the termination of the criminal proceedings.
RESERVATION OF CIVIL ACTIONS. Rule 111 of the Rules of Court of the Philippines sets out the procedure with respect to the Arts. 34-35
reservations in criminal cases with respect to the civil liability of the accused. Thus,
Section 1. Institution of criminal and civil actions. —
(a) When a criminal action is instituted, the civil action for the recovery of civil liability arising from the offense charged shall be deemed instituted with the criminal action unless the offended party waives the civil action, reserves his right to institute it separately or institutes the civil action prior to the criminal action.
The reservation of the right to institute separately the civil action shall be made before the prosecution starts presenting its evidence and under circumstances affording the offended party a reasonable opportunity to make such reservation.
When the offended party seeks to enforce civil liability against the accused by way of moral, nominal, temperate, or exemplary damages without specifying the amount thereof in the complaint or information, the fi ling fees therefor shall constitute a fi rst lien on the judgment awarding such damages.
Where the amount of damages, other than actual, is specifi ed in the complaint or information, the corresponding fi ling fees shall be paid by the offended party upon the fi ling thereof in court.
Except as otherwise provided in these Rules, no fi ling fees shall be required for actual damages.
No counterclaim, cross-claim or third-party complaint may be fi led by the accused in the criminal case, but any cause of action which could have been the subject thereof may be litigated in a separate civil action. (1a)
(b) The criminal action for violation of Batas Pambansa Blg. 22 shall be deemed to include the corresponding civil action. No reservation to fi le such civil action separately shall be allowed.
Upon fi ling of the aforesaid joint criminal and civil actions, the offended party shall pay in full the fi ling fees based on the amount of the check involved, which shall be considered as the actual damages claimed. Where the complaint or information also seeks to recover liquidated, moral, nominal, temperate or exemplary damages, the offended party shall pay the fi ling fees based on the amounts alleged therein. If the amounts are not so alleged but any of these damages are subsequently awarded by the court, the fi ling fees based on the amount awarded shall constitute a fi rst lien on the judgment.
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Where the civil action has been fi led separately and trial thereof has not yet commenced, it may be consolidated with the criminal action upon application with the court trying the latter case. If the application is granted, the trial of both actions shall proceed in accordance with section 2 of this Rule governing consolidation of the civil and criminal action.
Section 2. When separate civil action is suspended. —
After the criminal action has been commenced, the separate civil action arising therefrom cannot be instituted until fi nal judgment has been entered in the criminal action.
If the criminal action is fi led after the said civil action has already been instituted, the latter shall be suspended in whatever stage it may be found before judgment on the merits. The suspension shall last until fi nal judgment is rendered in the criminal action. Nevertheless, before judgment on the merits is rendered in the civil action, the same may, upon motion of the offended party, be consolidated with the criminal action in the court trying the criminal action. In case of consolidation, the evidence already adduced in the civil action shall be deemed automatically reproduced in the criminal action without prejudice to the right of the prosecution to cross-examine the witnesses presented by the offended party in the criminal case and of the parties to present additional evidence. The consolidated criminal and civil actions shall be tried and decided jointly.
During the pendency of the criminal action, the running of the period of prescription of the civil action which cannot be instituted separately or whose proceeding has been suspended shall be tolled. (n)
The extinction of the penal action does not carry with it extinction of the civil action. However, the civil action based on delict may be deemed extinguished if there is a fi nding in a fi nal judgment in the criminal action that the act or omission from which the civil liability may arise did not exist. (2a)
Section 3. When civil action may proceed independently. — In the cases provided in Articles 32, 33, 34 and 2176 of the Civil Code of the Philippines, the independent civil action may be brought by the offended party. It shall proceed independently of the criminal action and shall require only a preponderance of evidence. In no case, however, may the offended party recover damages twice for the same act or omission charged in the criminal action. (3a)
Section 4. Effect of death on civil actions. — The death of
the accused after arraignment and during the pendency of the criminal action shall extinguish the civil liability arising from
the delict. However, the independent civil action instituted under section 3 of this Rule or which thereafter is instituted to enforce liability arising from other sources of obligation may be continued against the estate or legal representative of the accused after proper substitution or against said estate, as the case may be. The heirs of the accused may be substituted for the deceased without requiring the appointment of an executor or administrator and the court may appoint a guardian ad litem for the minor heirs.
The court shall forthwith order said legal representative or representatives to appear and be substituted within a period of thirty (30) days from notice.
A fi nal judgment entered in favor of the offended party shall be enforced in the manner especially provided in these Rules for prosecuting claims against the estate of the deceased.
If the accused dies before arraignment, the case shall be dismissed without prejudice to any civil action the offended party may fi le against the estate of the deceased. (n)
Section 5. Judgment in civil action not a bar. — A fi nal
judgment rendered in a civil action absolving the defendant from civil liability is not a bar to a criminal action against the defendant for the same act or omission subject of the civil action. (4a)
Article 36. Prejudicial questions, which must be decided before any criminal prosecution may be instituted or may proceed, shall be governed by the rules of court which the Supreme Court shall promulgate and which shall not be in confl ict with the provisions of this Code.
PRECEDENCE. The general rule is that where both a civil and a criminal case arising from the same facts are fi led in court, the criminal case takes precedence. An exception to this general rule would be if there exist prejudicial questions which should be resolved fi rst before action could be taken in a criminal case and when the law provides that both civil and criminal case can be instituted simultaneously such as that provided in Article 33 of the Civil Code (Benitez v. Concepcion, 2 SCRA 178).
PREJUDICIAL QUESTION. A prejudicial question is one that arises in a case, the resolution of which is a logical antecedent of the issue involved therein, and the cognizance of which pertains
PERSONS AND FAMILY RELATIONS LAW 72
to another tribunal (Zapanta v. Montesa, 4 SCRA 510; Fortich v. Celdran, 19 SCRA 502). In prejudicial question matters, there are always two cases involved, namely, a civil and a criminal one. The criminal is always suspended because the issues in the civil is determinative of the outcome of the criminal case. There are, therefore, two essential elements of a prejudicial question, to wit:
1. the previously instituted civil action involves an issue similar or intimately related to the issue raised in the subsequent criminal action; and
2. the resolution of such issue determines whether or not the criminal action may proceed (Section 7, Rule 111 of the Rules of Court).
With respect to the suspension of the criminal action in cases where there is a prejudicial question to be determined in a civil case, Section 6 of Rule 111 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure provides:
Section 6. Suspension by reason of prejudicial question.
— A petition for suspension of the criminal action based upon the pendency of a prejudicial question in a civil action may be fi led in the offi ce of the prosecutor or the court conducting the preliminary investigation. When the criminal action has been fi led in court for trial, the petition to suspend shall be fi led in the same criminal action at any time before the prosecution rests. (6a)
Thus, in a case where a person alleges that his “motion to withdraw” fi led in and approved by the court was falsifi ed and that consequently the decision of the said court, basing his rights on the said motion and disregarding his claim that the subject motion was falsifi ed, was erroneous and where the said decision was appealed to the Court of Appeals before the said person fi led a criminal case against the accused for falsifi cation of public document (namely, the motion fi led in court), the Supreme Court held that the resolution in the civil case of whether the motion is authentic or not “will in a sense be determinative of the guilt or innocence of the accused in the criminal suit pending in another tribunal. As such, it is a prejudicial question which should fi rst be decided before the prosecution can proceed in the criminal case” (Fortich-Celdran v. Celdran, 19 SCRA 502).
However, in Jimenez v. Averia, 22 SCRA 1380, where the accused were criminally charged of estafa for not returning the Art. 36
money given to them as agents for the purpose of buying a boat which never materialized but who, prior to the arraignment, fi led a civil case assailing the validity of the receipt wherein they acknowledged having received the said amount of money and contended that their signatures in the said receipt were obtained through fraud, deceit and intimidation, the lower court, upon motion of the accused, suspended the criminal case on the ground that the issues in the civil case posed a prejudicial question. The Supreme Court, however, overturned the decision of the lower court by observing and ruling that there was no prejudicial question because
“x x x it will readily be seen that the alleged prejudicial question is not determinative of the guilt or innocence of the parties charged with estafa, because even on the assumption that the execution of the receipt whose annulment they sought in the civil case was vitiated by fraud, duress or intimidation, their guilt could still be established by other evidence showing, to the degree required by law, that they actually receive from the complainant the sum of P20,000 with which to buy for him a fi shing boat, and that, instead of doing so, they misappropriated the money and refused or otherwise failed to return it to him upon demand. The contention of the private respondent here would be tenable had they been charged with the falsifi cation of the same receipt involved in the civil action.
Also, where a spouse was criminally charged of bigamy by his fi rst spouse and, thereafter, the second spouse fi led a civil case for the annulment of marriage contending that the accused only forced and intimidated her to marry him and in which civil case the said accused fi led a third-party complaint against his fi rst spouse alleging that the said fi rst spouse intimidated and forced him to marry her, the Supreme Court ruled that the existence of the civil suit does not constitute a prejudicial question to warrant the suspension of the criminal case for bigamy because prior to the annulment of the fi rst marriage, the same cannot be considered as without effect and, therefore, shall be presumed to be validly existing. Hence, a party who contracts a second marriage then assumes the risk of being prosecuted for bigamy (Landicho v. Relova, 22 SCRA 731). However, it must be pointed out that if the situation were that the accused was the one who was intimidated or forced by the second spouse to enter into the bigamous marriage, his consent to the second marriage would be involuntary and cannot be the basis of his conviction for bigamy and, in which case, the civil case for annulment of the second marriage is a prejudicial question to warrant the suspension of the
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criminal case for bigamy (Zapanta v. Mendoza, L-14534, February 28, 1962). The cases referred to dealt with civil cases which invoked grounds for annulment of marriage under the Civil Code and which are now under Article 45 of the Family Code.
In a case where the husband fi led a civil action for declaration of nullity of his marriage on the ground of psychological incapacity under Article 36 of the Family Code and the wife fi led a criminal case for concubinage against the said husband and his paramour, the Supreme Court held that the civil action for nullity of marriage is not a suit involving a prejudicial action to justify the suspension of the criminal case for concubinage considering that, except for purposes of remarriage under Article 40 of the Family Code, the nullity of a marriage can be proven by any evidence other than a judicial decision of nullity and also because a subsequent judicial pronouncement of the nullity of marriage is not a defense in concubinage. Moreover, the Supreme Court citing the Landicho case (supra) said that, as long as there is no judicial declaration of nullity of marriage, the presumption is that the marriage exists for all intents and purposes (Beltran v. People, G.R. No. 137567, June 20, 2000; Te v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 126746, November 29, 2000).