TIP 0001: PROPRIETY OF COPYING PORTIONS OF A MEMORANDUM OF A PARTY INTO A DECISION.

 

SOURCE: DONNINA C. HALLEY VS. PRINTWELL, INC. (G.R. No. 157549, 30 MAY 2011, BERSAMIN, J) SUBJECTS: TRUST FUND DOCTRINE, JUDGE COPYING MEMORANDUM OF PARTY. (BRIEF TITLE: HALLEY VS. PRINTWELL).

 

It is to be observed in this connection that a trial or appellate judge may occasionally viewa party’s memorandum or brief as worthy of due consideration either entirely or partly. When he does so, the judgemay adopt and incorporatein his adjudicationthe memorandum or the parts of it he deems suitable,and yet not be guilty of the accusation of lifting or copying from the memorandum.[1][24] This isbecause ofthe avowed objective of the memorandum to contribute in the proper illumination and correct determination of the controversy.Nor is there anything untoward in the congruence of ideas and views about the legal issues between himself and the party drafting the memorandum.The frequency of similarities in argumentation, phraseology, expression, and citation of authorities between the decisions of the courts and the memoranda of the parties, which may be great or small, can be fairly attributable tothe adherence by our courts of law and the legal profession to widely knownor universally accepted precedents set in earlier judicial actions with identical factual milieus or posing related judicial dilemmas.

 

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[1][24] See, for instance, Bank of the Philippine Islands v. Leobrera, G.R. No. 137147, January 29, 2002, 375 SCRA 81, 86 (where the Court declared that although it was not good practice, there was nothing illegal in the act of the trial court completely copying the memorandum submitted by a party provided that the decision clearly and distinctly stated sufficient findings of fact and the law on which it was based).