The Three-Day Notice Rule

Section 4, Rule 15 of the Rules of Court requires every written motion required to be heard, including the Notice of Hearing, to be served upon the adverse party at least three (3) days before the date of hearing. The requirement refers to "actual receipt" and not just the mailing thereof to the adverse party, which is usually the case for pleadings.

Commonly referred to as the "three day notice" rule, this rule imposes upon the movant the burden of making sure that the other party actually receives his motion at least three (3) days before the hearing so that the adverse party may have ample time to prepare for the same and meet the motion. Failure to comply with this rule will make the motion a mere scrap of paper, unworthy of recognition by the Court.

While basic, this rule (quite suprisingly) is still violated by practitioners. I myself, in fact, have invoked the three-day notice rule a number of times just to get the court to throw out the opposing party's motion or "scrap of paper".

More often than not, however, and unless the Court is in Quezon City which is the pilot court for the new procedural rules where discretion is not allowed, the Court allows the motion to be heard "in the interest of justice" hence the reason for the abuse by some practitioners.

Note also, however, that this is always not the case as there are judges who are strict on the application of this rule and would not hesitate to throw out a motion once the adverse party points to the non-observance of the required formalities. 

One instance is the case of Cabrera vs. Ng, G.R. No. 201601, 12 March 2014, where the trial court found the motion for reconsideration therein to have failed to comply with the three-day notice rule, thus rendering the same ineffective to toll the period of finality of the Court's earlier decision.

The case eventually reached the Supreme Court via a petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court. In overturning the decision of the trial court and the Court of Appeals (which upheld the trial court), the Supreme Court looked into the essence of the rule, which is to "give the adverse party the opportunity to be heard" on the motion and held that the same was satisfied in this case.

Here, the Supreme Court noted that although the motion was received by the adverse party a few days after the date set for hearing, since the hearing was postponed twice and since the adverse party was actually able to file his opposition thereto, there was no reason for the trial court to throw out the motion for reconsideration on the ground of non-compliance with the three-day notice rule, thus -

"Nevertheless, the three-day notice requirement is not a hard and fast rule. When the adverse party had been afforded the opportunity to be heard, and has been indeed heard through the pleadings filed in opposition to the motion, the purpose behind the three-day notice requirement is deemed realized."

Consequently, the Supreme Court ruled that the trial court erred in denying the motion for reconsideration and directed the trial judge to proceed to consider the same within five (5) days from the finality of its (the Supreme Court) decision.