Neither estafa nor qualified theft (1)

Many moons ago, I wrote about juridical possession, an element that makes a case for estafa. Juridical possession is the type that can be set up even against the owner. For instance, you lease a car from a leasing company. The leasing company cannot just take the car away from you when the lease is ongoing. That is because you have juridical possession, the right to have the car as the contract dictates, which you can invoke even against the lessor. This is distinguished from material possession, which is just plain custody of personal property.

Recently, the Supreme Court has had to discuss how the absence of juridical possession exonerates a person from estafa.

In the recent case of Danica Medina v. People of the Philippines (G.R. 255632 promulgated on 25 July 2023), petitioner Danica was convicted by the trial court of estafa. She was an employee of the Philippine Public School Teachers Association or PPSTA. During her stint, she was tasked to receive contributions and payments from teacher members with the corresponding duty to turn them over to the PPSTA.

From September 2011 to March 2012, there was a discrepancy between what she collected and what was turned over, amounting to P88,452. Because of this, an investigation was conducted centering on her. After due process, she was terminated and eventually sued for estafa.

During the hearing, Danica admitted her task of receiving payments and turning them over to PPSTA. She, however, denied having received the amount she was accused of having pocketed. After the trial, the court was convinced she was guilty of estafa.

Unhappy with the decision, Danica appealed to the next-tier court. The Court of Appeals, however, affirmed her conviction. Still determined to redeem herself, she asked the Supreme Court to acquit her of the crime. After a thorough review of the facts of her case, the Highest Tribunal ruled.

"We cannot affirm the conviction of petitioner Medina for estafa, nor can we convict her of any other crime. The trial court's findings of fact are generally accorded great weight, and such findings of fact, when affirmed by the CA, are binding on the Court.

"In particular, it is a well-settled rule that factual findings of the trial court involving the credibility of witnesses are accorded utmost respect since trial courts have a first-hand account of the witnesses' manner of testifying in court and their demeanor during trial. The Court shall not supplant its own interpretation of the testimonies for that of the trial judge since he is in the best position to determine the issue of credibility."

However, there are exceptions to the above rule, including situations where the judgment is based on a misapprehension of facts. This exception applies to the case at bar.

First, the RTC and the CA were mistaken in declaring that petitioner Medina had juridical possession of the payments she collected from the PPSTA members.

Juridical possession gives the transferee a right over the property received, which the transferee may set up even against the owner. A sum of money received by an employee on behalf of the employer is not in the juridical possession of the employee; it is only in the employee's material possession because:

"The material possession of an employee is adjunct, by reason of his employment, to a recognition of the juridical possession of the employer. So long as the juridical possession of the thing appropriated did not pass to the employee-perpetrator, the offense committed remains to be theft, qualified, or otherwise. Hence, conversion of personal property in the case of an employee having mere material possession of the said property constitutes theft, whereas, in the case of an agent to whom both material and juridical possession have been transferred, misappropriation of the same property constitutes estafa."

To be continued