Rules of Court, Volume I: Civil Procedure

It opens with the ground the rest stands on — what remedial law is, how the courts are arranged, and the shape of a civil case as a whole — and then gives nine chapters to jurisdiction alone. Over the subject matter, over the person, over the issue and over the res; original, appellate, exclusive and concurrent; jurisdiction set against venue; and the doctrines students usually meet only as words: adherence, estoppel by laches, residual and primary jurisdiction, and the difference between an error of jurisdiction and an error of judgment.

Parts three and four take the case from commencement to the joining of issues. Cause of action, the joinder and splitting of causes, the real party in interest and the indispensable party, intervention and class suits, and venue. Then the pleadings, part by part: what they must contain, verification and the certification against forum shopping, the effect of failing to plead, default, amended and supplemental pleadings, counterclaims and cross-claims, the bill of particulars, filing and service, summons in all its modes, and motions under the omnibus motion rule.

Parts five and six carry it to judgment and beyond — dismissal and the two-dismissal rule, pretrial, the full range of discovery, trial, summary judgment; then judgment itself, new trial and reconsideration, relief from judgments, execution, and execution against property with garnishment and third-party claims.

Part seven is the appeals, Rule by Rule: from the first-level courts, by petition for review to the Court of Appeals, from quasi-judicial agencies, by ordinary appeal, by certiorari to the Supreme Court, and annulment of judgment. Part eight covers the routes most cases actually take — small claims, the expedited procedures, barangay conciliation, and the rules on judicial affidavits and mediation.

The ninth part teaches the reader to use the other eight. A roadmap of a civil case from intake to execution; how to choose the proper court and the proper action; how to choose the correct post-judgment remedy; the traps that recur; the ALAC method for answering; comprehensive multi-issue problems; and a quick reference of the matrices and timelines.

Every chapter is built the same way, in sixteen sections: the governing rule, the same rule in plain language, why it matters, the elements as a checklist, the procedure step by step, the exceptions, a Distinguish box for the concepts commonly confused, the controlling doctrines, a short example, a practice point, the Bar angle, the mistakes students actually make, a one-page Quick Recall, then a law-school problem, a Bar-style problem, and a model answer.