Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 15) — The Supreme Court (SC) has ordered the dismissal of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation’s counterclaim in a pending case against its former television host Willie Revillame, whom the media giant accused of breach of contract.
In a 22-page decision made public on Tuesday, the court’s Third Division ruled in favor of Revillame, as it took note of an earlier ruling of the First Division which found ABS-CBN guilty of “forum shopping.”
This refers to the act of filing two or more lawsuits in different courts, asking them to rule on the same or related causes to raise the chances of obtaining a favorable decision.
The court said ABS-CBN, which has asserted that Revillame was still bound by their contract at the time he moved to TV5, first applied for a temporary restraining order (TRO) with the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) in 2010 to prevent the airing of “Willing Willie.”
After its application for TRO was denied, ABS-CBN went to the Makati RTC to file a copyright infringement complaint on the similar ground of alleged violation of contract.
“This clearly shows that ABS-CBN willfully sought the same relief in two different fora, expecting a favorable result after being denied the first time,” the SC Third Division said.
The court ordered the Quezon City RTC to continue with the pending civil case without ABS-CBN’s compulsory counterclaim.
The legal dispute between Revillame and ABS-CBN began in August 2010, when the TV host filed a civil action before the Quezon City RTC seeking to terminate and rescind his three-year contract with the media corporation.
In September 2010, ABS-CBN filed its answer with a compulsory counterclaim. It prayed for liquidated damages in the amount of over ₱700 million, in addition to over ₱400 million “for each further violation by Revillame, or for each week of violation of their contract.”
Citing forum shopping, the Court of Appeals earlier dismissed the copyright infringement complaint filed by ABS-CBN before the Makati RTC — a ruling upheld in 2019 by the SC.
The SC explained that forum shopping is deemed a “deplorable” practice, as it “results in the possibility of different competent tribunals arriving at separate and contradictory decisions” and “adds to the congestion of the heavily burdened dockets of the courts.”
