The Supreme Court has junked the damage suit for copyright infringement that giant network ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. filed against television host Willie Revillame and ABC Development Corp. or TV5.
In a three-page resolution, the SC’s First Division upheld the Sept. 5, 2011 decision and the April 26, 2012 resolution of the Court of Appeals, which dismissed ABS-CBN’s civil suit due to forum shopping.
Before the appellate court rendered its decision, Makati City Regional Trial Court Branch 66 Presiding Judge Joselito Villarosa issued an order stopping the airing of Revillame’s former show “Willing Willie” and allowed the civil complaint against the comedian, his production outfit Wilprod and TV 5, to proceed.
But the CA reversed the RTC’s ruling and ordered the dismissal of the copyright infringement complaint before the Makati RTC having been filed in violation of the rules against forum shopping.
The appellate court noted that the network filed a similar case before the Quezon City RTC.
“Here, the petitioner committed forum shopping of the third kind—by splitting the same cause of action—when it filed separate cases with different reliefs but with both cases arising from a single cause of action,” the SC said, in sustaining the CA decision.
The high court ruled that the CA correctly held that Revillame’s refusal to honor his talent agreement by not working for a rival network “is the delict that purportedly violated the petitioner’s rights in the separate claims.”
Because of this, the SC observed that ABS-CBN resorted to forum shopping when it filed a complaint for infringement considering that both stemmed from Revillame’s refusal to honor his talent agreement.
ABS-CBN, in its complaint filed with the Makati RTC, sought to stop the airing of Revillame’s show citing its confusing similarity to its previous program “Wowowee” that was used to be aired by the network before they had a falling out with the host.
On the other hand, in the case pending before the Quezon City RTC, the CA noted that ABS-CBN implored to uphold its Talent Agreement with Revillame.