LUCIO PALANCA CHILIANCHIN, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. EUSEBIO COQUINCO, DEFENDANT AND APPELLEE.

Palanca Chilianchin versus Coquinco

The Case

This is an action to recover real property, brought by Lucio Palanca Chilianchin against Eusebio Coquinco. The plaintiff says that the deed of sale by which his son Carlos Palanca, acting as his attorney in fact, conveyed the mortgaged property to the defendant is null and void, because the power of attorney on which the son relied was forged. The case matters because it fixes the weight of a notarized document against oral testimony of forgery, and because it shows how the burden of proving falsity is allocated when the notary and the agent are already dead.

Procedural History

The plaintiff filed his complaint in the Court of First Instance of Manila in January 1946. Only the plaintiff presented evidence; the defendant rested without offering any. The trial court rendered judgment absolving the defendant and charging the costs to the plaintiff, holding that the plaintiff had failed to establish that his signature on the power of attorney was falsified. The plaintiff appealed from that judgment to the Supreme Court, which decided the appeal in October 1949.

Facts

On July 30, 1941, the plaintiff mortgaged the property in question to Bartolome E. San Diego to secure a loan of 22,000 pesos, payable within three years, with interest of ten percent per annum payable monthly in advance, plus a penalty of ten percent on the principal for default in the payment of interest, and an additional ten percent of the total sum due should a legal action be brought for collection.

On June 8, 1942, San Diego sued to foreclose the mortgage, alleging that the monthly interests from December 1941 had not been paid. The plaintiff was then in Negros Occidental, so the summons was served on his son Carlos Palanca. Judgment was rendered ordering payment within six months, failing which the property would be sold at public auction. The defendant appealed. While the appeal was pending, and to prevent the auction sale, Carlos Palanca, as attorney in fact of his father, sold the property on September 15, 1943, for 69,000 pesos to Eusebio Coquinco, the defendant in this case, and paid the judgment out of the proceeds.

Carlos Palanca and the notary public before whom the power of attorney was acknowledged both died. In January 1946 the plaintiff sued to recover the property, claiming that he had never been in Manila after the outbreak of the war, that his son forged the power of attorney, and that he never executed or ratified it.

Issues

• Whether or not the presumption of authenticity of the notarized power of attorney was rebutted by the plaintiff's evidence of forgery.
• Whether or not the sale of the property by the son as attorney in fact to the defendant is null and void for want of a valid power of attorney.

Applicable Provisions

The decision does not quote a statutory article; it applies the settled rule on notarial documents, which it states through its own prior jurisprudence:

A notarial document, guaranteed by public attestation in accordance with the law, must be sustained in full force and effect so long as he who impugns it does not present strong, complete, and conclusive proof of its falsity or nullity on account of some flaw or defect provided against by law.

This rule places the burden of proving forgery on the plaintiff who attacks the notarized instrument.

The Court also restates the standard of proof required of the party alleging falsity:

In order to prove the falsity of two powers of attorney, executed on different dates before two different notaries, it is not enough to show, by the testimony of several witnesses of doubtful capacity, and by unauthenticated documents, that, on the dates of their respective execution, the principal was absent from the place where it is supposed that the said instruments were drawn up and authenticated; it is necessary that clear, strong, and irrefutable evidence be produced showing that the notaries could not have certified that the said person was actually in their presence, that they heard him ratify the contents of the respective documents, and that they could not have certified to the number of his cedula, the only one exhibited to both notaries, without manifestly perverting the truth.

This defines the quantum of evidence needed to overcome the notarial attestation.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the presumption of authenticity was not rebutted. The plaintiff's evidence, far from proving falsity, tended to confirm the document. He offered no sample of his genuine signature and no handwriting expert; his counsel even withdrew the request for three days to present one. His own son Almario Palanca testified that the signature resembled his father's genuine signature and that he had no doubt of Carlos Palanca's honesty. The plaintiff's claim of absence from Manila was unsupported, and the trial court reasonably observed that before the war there were frequent flights between Manila and Negros, so it was not impossible for him to have flown to Manila on September 2, 1941, to execute the power. The testimony of the instrumental witnesses was discredited: Almario Palanca, an interested forced heir, admitted signing in 1943 a document dated 1941, and Armando Arcas admitted signing while knowing a falsification was being committed.

On the second issue, the Court held that since the power of attorney was authentic, the sale to the defendant was valid and the property need not be returned. It noted that the plaintiff's own attorney in the foreclosure case, Atty. Zosimo Rivas, never raised the defense that service on Carlos Palanca did not bind the plaintiff, which corroborated the existence of the agency. The Court also found it inconceivable that the plaintiff, knowing of his mortgage obligation and the monthly interest due since July 1941, would not have come to Manila or inquired about his property until January 1946, had he not executed the power of attorney.

Doctrine

A notarial document is presumed authentic and regular, and must be sustained in full force and effect unless the party impugning it presents strong, complete, and conclusive proof of its falsity or nullity. Mere denial by the supposed signatory, unsupported by samples of his genuine signature or expert testimony, does not overcome the presumption. The party alleging forgery bears the burden of proof, and the testimony of interested witnesses of doubtful capacity cannot supply the clear, strong, and irrefutable evidence required.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the lower court, absolving the defendant Eusebio Coquinco, with costs against the plaintiff appellant.

Remember This

Memorize the line: a notarial document stands in full force and effect until he who impugns it presents strong, complete, and conclusive proof of its falsity. Examiners use this case on the presumption of regularity of notarized instruments and on the burden of proving forgery of a power of attorney.