I'm Giancarlo Enrico S. Pozon, a Wushu instructor, investor and Barrister... That's right, Barrister; I graduated from law school and took the Bar Exams, now I'm waiting for the results. I created this blog to make Philippine Law easy to understand for the average person. It's all about free legal advice. There are many law blogs. But the problem is that many of them are written for lawyers and law students. They use words that can't be understood by ordinary people.
Many lawyers, judges and law students consider themselves as superior to most human beings because of their knowledge of the law. It bothers me since the law is supposed to serve society. Since the law is meant to serve society as a whole, it is important that is must be understood by everybody.
This does not mean that we should all become lawyers. It means that although law is a highly specialized profession, the first duty of everybody in this profession is to make the law understandable to all; that's why all these articles are free legal advice.
Like I said, this blog is about law -but it's for the ordinary people, not the lawyers. It's for the ordinary folk so they will know what is good and bad for them, and that making them aware of the law will help us all improve society as a whole. This is free legal advice for everybody!
The purpose of a class suit is to obtain relief for or against a large number of persons as a group or integral entity and not as individuals with rights and liabilities separate from each other. These are the requisites:
1.) Many persons have a general or common interest in the subject matter of the case
2.) The persons are so numerous that it's not practical to join them all as parties
3.) The parties actually appearing before the court are sufficiently numerous and represented that their interests are fully protected
The subject matter must refer to the physical facts, property, money, etc.; it doesn't refer to the crime or act of the defendant. It also can't be used to recover real property from several persons occupying different portions of it (Sulo ng Bayan vs. Araneta, 72 SCRA 347.) However, it can refer to the wrongful act, property or contract directly involved in the suit "concerning which the wrong has been done and with respect to which the controversy has arisen." (Meralco vs. Philippine Consumers Foundation, 374 SCRA 262.) In other words, it can refer to the bad act that caused the damage.
In a class suit, there is a single right of action pertaining to numerous persons. In a permissive joinder or persons, on the other hand, there are multiple rights that belong to several distinct persons that cam from the same transaction/s and that there are common questions of law and fact that came out of the transaction/s.
Some Examples
A large group of stockholders filing suit against a corporation for an illegal act can qualify as a class suit (Pascual vs. Orozco, 64 Phil 697.)
A suit filed on behalf of plantation laborers against sugar planters and sugar central to enforce laborer's rights under RA 809 (the Sugar Act of 1952.)
There can be other causes, provided all 3 requisites are present.
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