In July 2011, X applied for a PPO, a permanent protective order under the VAWC (Violence Against Women and their Children Act or Republic Act 9262) against Y, her common-law spouse, with the Regional Trial Court of Tagum.

She wanted to be protected from all harm and abuses, be they mental, physical, sexual, or emotional. The trial court eventually granted the PPO. The decision became final and executory a month later. Thus, the case was closed.

Three years later, the common-law spouse filed a case before the Regional Trial Court of Lapu-Lapu, Cebu for dissolution of the co-ownership, partnership, liquidation, and accounting against X. Y wanted the co-ownership between him and X to be wound up and the properties divided between them.

Almost a year later in June 2015, he filed a motion before the trial court in Tagum in the very same case that issued a PPO against him. Note that a new case was not filed. Rather, Y revived the case that was terminated three years earlier. He asked the court to compel X to account for the proceeds of all their closed businesses and sold properties. X did not reply when asked by the court to comment. In the end, the court, because of X's failure to reply, rendered judgment against her and forfeited the properties Y wanted accounted for, in his favor. X's plea for reconsideration was denied. Thus, she went up to the Court of Appeals.

The appellate court sided with X. It ruled that the case before the Tagum court had long become final. Therefore, it was no longer susceptible to reopening. Second and more importantly, by filing a motion for accounting before the Tagum court, Y committed forum shopping since he was asking for the same relief from the Lapu-Lapu court.

Y went up to the Supreme Court. He insisted that he did not commit forum shopping. He argued that the motion to account filed with the Tagum court was for the parties' moneylending and car dealership businesses. The case before the Lapu-Lapu court was, however, for the dissolution of their community property and its distribution.

So is Y correct? Can he ask for accounting in one case and dissolution in another, each issue pending before two different and separate courts?

No, said the Supreme Court. "Not only did petitioner endeavor to alter an already final and executory judgment, he committed forum shopping when he filed his Motion to Account in the PPO case; thus, the RTC-Tagum should have dismissed it outright.

A party is guilty of forum shopping when he or she institutes, either simultaneously or successively, two or more actions before different courts asking the latter to rule the same or related issues and grant the same or substantially the same reliefs.

Such institution of actions is on the notion that one or the other court would render a favorable ruling or increase the chance of the party obtaining a favorable decision.

In fine, there is forum shopping when a party files two or more cases involving the same parties, causes of action and reliefs. Notably, forum shopping is one of the grounds for the dismissal of a case.

The rule against it aims to avoid the rendition of two competent courts of separate and opposing rulings which may arise because a party-litigant, takes advantage and tries his or her luck into seeking relief until a result in one's favor is attained.

In this case, the identity of the parties in the Dissolution case and in the Motion to Account (filed in the PPO case) cannot be denied. Both of these cases involved herein petitioner and respondent. Moreover, the rights and reliefs asserted by petitioner in the Dissolution case pertained to the same ones that he declared in the Motion to Account.

Added to these, after obtaining a favorable action with the RTC-Tagum granting the petitioner's Motion to Account, petitioner filed a notice to withdraw his Dissolution case with the RTC-Lapu-Lapu.

As pointed out by the CA, such withdrawal of action, after obtaining a favorable ruling in another court, shows petitioner's 'reprehensible act of trifling with court processes', and of his scheme into seeking the same or similar reliefs from different courts to increase his chance of getting a favorable decision. In sum, it cannot be mistaken that the Dissolution case and the Motion to Account (in the PPO case) were practically pursuant to the same facts and reliefs asked for, that is, for an accounting of the co-owned properties of the parties.

They are so interrelated that any disposition made in any of them, regardless of which party is successful, would amount to res judicata.

Evidently, the subsequent filing of the Motion to Account despite the pendency of the Dissolution case was unnecessary and vexatious; thus, it should have been dismissed on the ground of forum shopping."

The facts and citations are from Masakazu Uematsu v. Alma N. Balinon (G.R. 234812 promulgated on 25 November 2019.)