G.R. No. 90580, 8 April 1991

FACTS:

A collection suit with preliminary attachment was filed by Equitable Banking Corporation against Freeman, Inc. and Saw Chiao Lian, its President and General Manager. The petitioners moved to intervene, alleging that (1) the loan transactions between Saw Chiao Lian and Equitable Banking Corp. we’re not approved by the stockholders representing at least 2/3 of corporate capital; (2) Saw Chiao Lian had no authority to contract such loans; and (3) there was collusion between the officials of Freeman, Inc. and Equitable Banking Corp. in securing the loans. The motion to intervene was denied, and the petitioners appealed to the Court of Appeals.

Petitioners argue that they have the right as stockholders to intervene while Equitable Banking contends that the collection suit against Freeman, Inc, and Saw Chiao Lian is essentially in personam and, as an action against defendants in their personal capacities, will not prejudice the petitioners as stockholders of the corporation.

ISSUE:

Whether Petitioner as stockholders may intervene in the present case.

RULING:

No. To allow intervention, [a] it must be shown that the movant has legal interest in the matter in litigation, or otherwise qualified; and [b] consideration must be given as to whether the adjudication of the rights of the original parties may be delayed or prejudiced, or whether the intervenor’s rights may be protected in a separate proceeding or not. Both requirements must concur as the first is not more important than the second. The words “an interest in the subject” mean a direct interest in the cause of action as pleaded, and which would put the intervenor in a legal position to litigate a fact alleged in the complaint, without the establishment of which plaintiff could not recover.

Here, the interest, if it exists at all, of petitioners-movants is indirect, contingent, remote, conjectural, consequential and collateral. At the very least, their interest is purely inchoate, or in sheer expectancy of a right in the management of the corporation and to share in the profits thereof and in the properties and assets thereof on dissolution, after payment of the corporate debts and obligations.

While a share of stock represents a proportionate or aliquot interest in the property of the corporation, it does not vest the owner thereof with any legal right or title to any of the property, his interest in the corporate property being equitable or beneficial in nature. Shareholders are in no legal sense the owners of corporate property, which is owned by the corporation as a distinct legal person.

*Case digest by Paul Jason G. Acasio, JD-IV, Andres Bonifacio Law School, SY 2019-2020