71 Bembol vs CA 213 SCRA 457 GR 116845 November 29, 1995

Subject Matter: Jurisdiction of RTC; court “hearing” includes pretrial; power of RTC-judge to declare parties in default

Facts: The case between Spouses Bembol and Pangasinan Development Bank, the scheduled trial was thrice reset. When the original
Judge Aliposa has finally set for pretrial sending forth notices to counsels of both parties only on which have been affirmatively receive.
The counsel for Pangasinan Bank invested with the idea that the pairing judge, who is to take over the case, Judge Sison on the
scheduled date cannot be certain as said judge would have to adjust his hearing schedule advises his client PAngasinan Bank not to
appear on said scheduled date, as he would also have to attend on another hearing on that same day. When the scheduled date of
pretrial was conducted by Judge Sison, the Spouses Bembol motioned to declare Pangasinan Development Bank in default for failure
to appear both private respondent and its counsel to appear on trial. Judge Sison declared Pangasinan Bank in defaulted and allowed
Spouses Bembol to present evidence ex parte.

Issue:

1. WON notice of “hearing” is equivalent to notice of “pretrial”, the latter having not received by private respondent to a case
prevents the court from acquiring jurisdiction over his person.
2. WON respondent RTC committed grave abuse of discretion in declaring the parties in default for failure to appear on trial.

Ruling:

1. Notice of hearing covers notice of pretrial. A hearing as known to the law is not confined to a trial but embraces the several
stages of litigation. It does not preclude pretrial.

2. The trial court could certainly not be faulted for declaring private respondent as in default. Although he had been advised by
Judge Aliposa to wait for further orders from Judge Sison, who was taking over the trial of the case, private respondent's
counsel was not justified in assuming that no hearing on his case would be held as previously scheduled, especially since he
did not receive any notice of any new date.

Indeed, there was no reason to suppose that the hearing scheduled on December 6, 1993 was for anything other than a
pretrial. The holding of a pretrial conference had been the subject of several previous notices to the parties and their counsel,
and private respondent never pretended that it did not know that what had been scheduled was a pretrial.

Indeed, he knew that the pretrial was scheduled on December 6, 1993. If he thought there was a possibility that the pretrial
would be postponed on account of the change of judges, he could have inquired from the court as the more prudent course,
instead of assuming that the pretrial conference would again be postponed. This was necessary since he had been told of the
possibility of postponement merely by the judge formerly trying his case.