SC JUNKS ABS-CBN’S BID TO GET P127-M DAMAGES FROM TV5, REVILLAME

THE Supreme Court has denied the bid of television network ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. to seek P127 million in damages for copyright infringement from television host Willie Revillame and ABC Development Corp. or TV5.

In a three-page resolution, the Court’s First Division affirmed the September 5, 2011, decision and the April 26, 2012, resolution of the Court of Appeals (CA), which junked ABSCBN’s civil suit due to forum shopping.

Prior to the CA ruling, the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Makati City 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 TV5 to proceed.

However, the CA reversed the trial court’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.

It noted that the network filed a similar case before the Quezon City RTC (QC-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 explained in upholding the CA decision.

The SC said 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.”

Thus, the SC said 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—the show 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 QC-RTC, the CA noted that ABS-CBN implored to uphold its talent agreement with Revillame.