There is a wide distinction between facts and a conclusion from facts. It is difficult, at times, to distinguish a conclusion of fact from a conclusion of law. At times, the conclusion of fact may be also a conclusion of law — for example, to say that a right once belonging to A is now the property of B, is a conclusion of law as well as a conclusion of fact. (Adams vs. Holley, 12 Howard’s Practice, 326.) To charge that A is guilty of fraud is to charge a conclusion of law as well as to state a conclusion of facts. The statement in the decision of the court in this case “that the plaintiff has the right to recover one undivided seventh part of the lands described in said complaint, she being, according to the evidence, the owner of the said seventh part,” is also a conclusion of fact as well as a conclusion of law. No court is justified in reaching that conclusion without having certain ultimate facts presented to it. No court would be justified in finding that A was guilty of fraud in the absence of hearing proof upon certain ultimate facts. There may be much evidence introduced for the purpose of establishing certain ultimate facts, which ultimate facts, taken together, justify a conclusion — for example, that A is guilty of fraud.
There is much conflict among the authorities with reference to whether or not certain statements are conclusions of law or conclusions of fact. A statement of fact in a pleading may be a conclusion of fact or law if found in a judgment or decision. For example, if A alleges in his pleading that he is the owner of certain personal property and therefore entitled to the possession of the same, it is a statement of a fact, whereas, if the same statements were found in the judgment of the court it might be regarded as a conclusion of fact. So also of duress; to allege in the complaint that the plaintiff was compelled to pay a sum of money is a conclusion of law (Commercial Bank vs. City of Rochester, 41 Barber, 341; 41 N. Y., 619), while to say that he was threatened by the defendant with death or with great bodily injury, and in fear of same paid a sum of money, etc., or that he was illegally imprisonment and to procure a release, paid, etc., would doubtless be held to be a statement of facts. It is not possible to formulate a definition or a statement that will always enable us to distinguish what is meant by a conclusion of law in contradiction from a conclusion of fact; yet, in inspecting pleadings or judgments, it will seldom be difficult to make the distinction.
"As an administrative proceeding, the evidentiary bar against which the evidence at hand is measured is not the highest quantum of proof beyond reasonable doubt, requiring moral certainty to support affirmative findings. Instead, the lowest standard of substantial evidence, that is, such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind will accept as adequate to support a conclusion, applies. Because administrative liability attaches so long as there is some evidence adequate to support the conclusion that acts constitutive of the administrative offense have been performed (or have not been performed), reasonable doubt does not ipso facto result in exoneration unlike in criminal proceedings where guilt must be proven beyond reasonable doubt. This hornbook doctrinal distinction undergirds our parallel findings of administrative liability and criminal acquittal on reasonable doubt for charges arising from the same facts."
Public office is a public trust. A public servant must bear at all times the highest sense of honesty. This is especially significant for employees in the judiciary. The image of a court of justice is necessarily mirrored in the conduct, official or otherwise, of its personnel, from the judge to the lowest employee. Hence, those involved in the administration of justice must live up to the highest standard of honesty and integrity in the public service. Not only must their conduct at all times be characterized by propriety and decorum but, above all else, it must be beyond suspicion…
In administrative proceedings, the quantum of proof necessary for a finding of guilt is substantial evidence or such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind may accept as adequate to support a conclusion. Well-entrenched is the rule that substantial proof, and not clear and convincing evidence or proof beyond reasonable doubt, is sufficient as basis for the imposition of any disciplinary action upon the employee. The standard of substantial evidence is satisfied where the employer, as in this case the Court, has reasonable ground to believe that the employee is responsible for the misconduct and his participation therein renders him unworthy of trust and confidence demanded by his position.
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— Filoteo v. Calago, A.M. No. P-04-1815 (Formerly OCA IPI No. 04-1885-P), October 18, 2007
"If we must choose between a strict and literal interpretation of the law and a liberal and reasonable interpretation of the law, if we must choose between the letter of the law which killeth and the spirit of the law which giveth life, can any one doubt what our decision will be?"
— Justice George A. Malcolm, Ysip vs. Municipal Council of Cabiao, 43 Phil. 251
There is nothing sacred about processes or pleadings, their forms or contents. Their sole purpose is to facilitate the application of justice to the rival claims of contending parties. They were created, not to hinder and delay, but to facilitate and promote, the administration of justice. They do not constitute the thing itself, which courts are always striving to secure to litigants. They are designed as the means best adopted to obtain that thing. In other words, they are a means to an end. When they lose the character of the one and become the other, the administration of justice is at fault and courts are correspondingly remiss in the performance of their obvious duty.
The error in this case is purely technical. To take advantage of it for other purposes than to cure it, does not appeal to a fair sense of justice. Its presentation as fatal to the plaintiff’s case smacks of skill rather than right. A litigation is not a game of technicalities in which one more deeply schooled and skilled in the subtle art of movement and position, entraps and destroys the other. It is rather, a contest in which each contending party fully and fairly lays before the court the facts in issue and then, brushing aside as wholly trivial and indecisive all imperfections of form and technicalities of procedure, asks that justice be done upon the merits. Law-suits, unlike duels, are not to be won by a rapier’s thrust. Technicality, when it deserts its proper office as an aid to justice and becomes its great hindrance and chief enemy, deserves scant consideration from courts. There should be no vested rights in technicalities. No litigant should be permitted to challenge a record of a court of these Islands for defect of form when his substantial rights have not been prejudiced thereby. The rules of procedure are used only to help secure substantial justice. They cannot be blindly adhered to if they would serve no other purpose than to put into oblivion the very lis mota of the controversy.
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— Justice Moreland, in Alonso v. Villamor, 16 Phil. 315, 321-322 [1910]
