Forum Shopping

The petition for judicial reconstitution and the application for administrative reconstitution in the Land Registration Authority addressed different situations and did not have identical bases. For forum shopping to exist, both actions must involve the same transaction, same essential facts and circumstances and must raise identical causes of action, subject matter and issues. A violation of the rule against forum shopping other than a willful and deliberate forum shopping did not authorize the [court] to dismiss the proceeding without motion and hearing. By its outright and undiscerning application of the sanction against forum shopping, the [court] plunged into an unwanted limbo the petitioner's and his co-owners' ownership of the realties. A modicum of care and discernment could have avoided such prejudicial result. We now put an end to such limbo by cautioning all judges to exercise care and discernment in their enforcement of the rule against forum shopping, that they may unduly trench on the valuable rights of litigants (IN RE: Reconstitution of TCTs and issuance of owners' duplicate CTCs in lieu of those lost, G.R. No. 156797, July 6, 2010).