Is service of summons upon one spouse binding upon the other? This short note seeks to lay down the rules on service of summons upon spouses.
Where a spouse is sued separately
Where a spouse is sued separately or individually, service of summons upon the non-party spouse is not binding upon the other. This is because service of summons upon a natural person must as a rule be made either by personal or substituted service, and nothing in the rules provides that one spouse is authorized to receive service of summons for another.
In De Leon v. Hontanosas, 67 SCRA 458, 462-463 (1975), the Court held that service of summons upon the defendant’s husband was binding on the wife. A perusal of the case however reveals that what was effected there was substituted service upon the wife, who was temporarily absent from her home, through the husband who was residing at their conjugal home. Hence De Leon does not detract from the general rule.
In Gemperle v. Schenker, 125 Phil 458 (1967), Paul, a non-resident, appointed his wife Helen as his attorney-in-fact to bring a suit against Gemperle. Hence, it was held that in Gemperle’s countersuit for damages against Paul for having brought a baseless suit, service of summons on Helen, the attorney-in-fact, was binding upon Paul. Indeed, if instead of filing an independent action, Gemperle had filed a counterclaim in the action brought by Paul against him, there would have been no doubt that the trial court could have acquired jurisdiction over Paul through his agent and attorney-in-fact, Helen. Gemperle thus does not undercut the general rule since the spouse had been appointed as an agent to bring a suit.
Where spouses are sued jointly
Even where spouses are sued jointly, service of summons upon each is required. The reason is that the conjugal partnership or absolute community has no separate juridical personality and thus service upon one spouse does not amount to service upon the other.
In Villarama v. Guno, G.R. No. 197514, 6 August 2018, Spouses A and B sold a parcel of land to Spouses C and D. By virtue of said sale, a deed of absolute sale was entered into between the parties and 18 promissory notes were issued by Spouses C and D in favor of Spouses A and B. Later, X, as the trustee of Spouses A and B, brought an action for rescission of promissory notes, deed of sale of real property and cancellation of title against Spouses C and D before the RTC. Substituted service of summons was made at C’s (the wife’s) office, the clerk therein acknowledging receipt only for C.
The Court held that service of summons on the wife is deemed binding on the husband where the spouses are being sued on an obligation chargeable to the conjugal partnership. The Court stated that considering that the obligation entered into by C and D clearly appeared to be a transaction that their conjugal partnership is liable for, they were therefore correctly made co-defendants as they had the same interests therein.
The ruling is arguable. While the obligation incurred by the spouses C and D is chargeable to the conjugal partnership, it was a leap of logic to conclude that service of summons upon C would also be binding upon D. The holding conflated the rule on when spouses should be sued jointly under Section 4 of Rule 3 with the rule regarding service of summons under Rule 14.
At any rate the Villarama holding is no longer good case law because of Section 11, Rule 14 of the 2020 Rules of Civil Procedure which provides that “[w]hen spouses are sued jointly, service of summons should be made to each spouse individually.”
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