SANTIAGO VS.

FOJAS

FACTS:
• Complainants allegedly illegally expelled Paulino Salvador from FEU Faculty Association (union).
• The latter then filed a case against complainants with the DOLE, wherein it was declared that said expulsion was indeed illegal.
• Subsequently, Salvador filed with RTC a complaint against complainants for actual, moral, and exemplary damages and attorney’s
fees.
• Respondent, as complainant’s counsel, filed motion to dismiss which was granted.
• Salvador then filed a motion for reconsideration and the case was reinstated and the court required the complainants to file their
answer.
• Instead of filing an answer, the respondent filed a motion for reconsideration and dismissal of the case, which were both denied.
• Respondent then filed a petition for certiorari but was also denied.
• The respondent, however, still did not file the complainants’ answer and as a result, the complainants were declared in default and
Salvador was allowed to present evidence ex-parte.
• Thereafter, the trial court rendered a decision and ordered the complainants to pay damages.
• Case was elevated to CA, which affirmed in toto the decision of the trial court.

ISSUE:
• Whether or not the respondent committed culpable negligence, as would warrant a disciplinary action, in failing to file
complainants’ answer.

RULING:
• YES. The respondent was reprimanded and admonished to be more careful in the performance of his duty to his clients.
• Once a lawyer takes up the cause of his client, he must serve the client with competence and diligence, and champion the latter's
cause with wholehearted fidelity, care, and devotion. The client is entitled to the benefit of any and every remedy and defense that
is authorized by the law of the land and he may expect his lawyer to assert every such remedy or defense.
• Respondent’s excuse for not filing the answer was “in his overzealousness to question the Denial Order of the trial court, he instead,
thru honest mistake and excusable neglect, filed a petition for certiorari.”
• However, as pointed out by complainants, in respondent’s motion, he admitted that the reason for his failure to file the answer was
“due to volume and pressure of legal work.”
• SC stated that whether it be the first or the second ground, the fact remains that the respondent did not comply with his duty to
file an answer.
• Every case a lawyer accepts deserves his full attention, diligence, skill, and competence, regardless of its importance and whether
he accepts it for a fee or for free.
• All told, the respondent committed a breach of Canon 18 of the Code of Professional Responsibility which requires him to serve his
clients, the complainants herein, with diligence and, more specifically, Rule 18.03 thereof which provides: "A lawyer shall not
neglect a legal matter entrusted to him, and his negligence in connection therewith shall render him liable."
• The respondent's negligence is not excused by his claim that Civil Case No. 3526-V-91 was in fact a "losing cause" for the
complainants since the claims therein for damages were based on the final decision of the Med-Arbiter declaring the complainants'
act of expelling Salvador from the union to be illegal. This claim is a mere afterthought which hardly persuades us. If indeed the
respondent was so convinced of the futility of any defense therein, he should have seasonably informed the complainants thereof.
Rule 15.05, Canon 15 of the Code of Professional Responsibility expressly provides: A lawyer, when advising his client, shall give a
candid and honest opinion on the merits and probable results of the client's case, neither overstating nor understanding the
prospects of the case.
• Then too, if he were unconvinced of any defense, we are unable to understand why he took all the trouble of filing a motion to
dismiss on the grounds of res judicata and lack of jurisdiction and of questioning the adverse ruling thereon initially with this Court
and then with the Court of Appeals
• Finally, the complainants were not entirely without any valid or justifiable defense. They could prove that the plaintiff was not
entitled to all the damages sought by him or that if he were so, they could ask for a reduction of the amounts thereof.