JOSE TORRES, ET AL., PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLANTS, VS. LUIS MORALES, ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES.

The plaintiffs Jose Torres and Marcosa Cruz, husband and wife,
filed a complaint in the Court of First Instance of Tarlac against Luis
Morales and Hermenegilda Sicat, also husband and wife, alleging three
causes of action. Under the first cause of action, the plaintiffs seek
to recover the sum of P12,352, alleged to be due from the defendants as
unpaid balance of a loan secured by the latter from the plaintiffs in
April, 1949. Under the second cause of action, the plaintiffs seek to
recover the sum of P15.833.30, alleged to be due from the defendants as
a result of the payment by the plaintiffs, as guarantors, of a loan of
P15,000 obtained in January, 1950, by the defendants from Avelino
Flores which the defendants failed to pay on its date of maturity, July
15, 1950. Under the third cause of action, the plaintiffs seek to
recover the sum of P10,000 as damages suffered by the plaintiffs by
reason of defendants’ failure to pay the loans referred to in the first
and second causes of action. The Court of First Instance of Tarlac, as
prayed for in plaintiffs’ complaint, issued a writ of preliminary
attachment against the defendants’ properties, by virtue of which the
defendants’ house and lot covered by transfer certificate of title No.
6326 of the.Register “of Deeds of Tarlac, and certain personal
properties belonging to the defendants and valued at P10,110, were
levied upon. On motion of the defendants, however, and after the filing
of a counterbond for P10,110, the Court of First Instance of Tarlac
lifted the attachment with regards to the personal properties. On
September 11, 1950, the defendants filed a motion alleging that the
defendant Luis Morales died on August 25, 1950, and praying that the
complaint be dismissed and the writ of attachment dissolved, on the
ground that the action is for the recoverey of money from the conjugal
partnership of Luis Morales and Hermenegilda Sicat which was
automatically dissolved upon the death of the husband. In this
connection, it is noteworthy that on September 1, 1950, plaintiff Jose
Torres had already instituted in the Court of First Instance of Tarlac
intestate proceedings of the deceased Luis Morales. In its order of
October 24, 1950, the Court of First Instance of Tarlac issued an order
dismissing the complaint without special pronouncement as to costs and
lifting the writ of preliminary attachment. From this order the
plaintiffs have appealed.

The applicable provisions are section 21, Rule 3, of the Rules of
Court which states that when the action is for the recovery of money,
debt or interest thereon, and the defendant dies before final judgment
in the Court of First Instance, it shall be dismissed to be prosecuted
in the manner especially provided therefor, and section 2 of Rule 75
which requires that when the marriage is dissolved by the death of the
husband or wife, the community property shall be inventoried,
administered, and liquidated, and the debts thereof paid, in the
testate or intestate proceedings of the deceased spouse. Under their
first assignment of error, however, the plaintiffs contend that even
admitting the propriety of the dismissal with respect to the first and
second causes of action, the complaint should not have been dismissed
as to the third cause of action, which is for the recovery of damages,
in view of section 1 of Rule 88 to the effect that actions to recover
damages for an injury to person or property, real or personal, may be
commenced against the executor or administrator. It is very obvious
that the rule cited is not applicable, because the third cause of
action alleged in appellants’ complaint is merely dependent upon or a
consequence of the first and second causes of action founded on the
alleged unpaid indebtedness of the defendants-appellees. As a matter of
fact, in alleging the third cause of action, the plaintiffs-appellants
reproduced each and every allegation under the first two causes of
action and averred that, as a consequence of defendants’ failure to
meet their obligations under said causes of action, the plaintiffs had
suffered the damages sought to be recovered in the third cause of
action.

In view of what has been said, it becomes unnecessary to pass upon
appellants’ second contention that the trial court erred in lifting the
attachment.

Wherefore, the appealed order is hereby affirmed with costs of this instance against the appellants. So ordered.

Feria, Pablo, Bengzon, Padilla, Tuason, Reyes, Jugo, and Bautista Angelo, JJ., concur.