MANILA SURETY & FIDELITY COMPANY, INC., PETITIONER, VS. TRINIDAD TEODORO AND THE COURT OF APPEALS, RESPONDENTS.

The Manila Surety &
Fidelity Company, Inc., filed this petition for
review by certiorari of the decision of the Court of Appeals in its Case No. CA-G. R. No. 30916.  The case relates to the execution of a joint
and several judgment for money obtained by the said company against the
Philippine Ready-Mix Concrete Co., Inc. and Jose Corominas,
Jr., in a litigation started in 1952
in the Court of First Instance of Manila (Civil Case No. 17014), whose decision
was affirmed by the Court of Appeals with only a slight modification in respect
of the award for attorney’s fees.

The proceedings which
took place thereafter are narrated in the decision sought to be reviewed as follows:

“When said decision became final, respondent Manila Surety
secured on September 20, 1961, from the Court of First Instance of Manila in
Civil Case No. 17014 a second alias writ of execution addressed to respondent
provin­cial sheriff of Rizal whose deputy, together
with counsel for respondent Manila Surety, repaired to the re­sidence of herein
petitioner at No. 794 Harvard Street, Mandaluyong, Rizal, and levied upon a car, some furniture, appliances
and personal properties found therein belonging solely and exclusive­ly to the
petitioner with the exception of a sewing machine which belonged to a maid by
the name of Nati Fresco, a G.E. television set which
was the pro­perty of the minor Jose Alfonso Corominas,
and a baby grand piano as well as a Columbia radio phonograph which belonged to Jose Corominas, Jr.  As
the petitioner was then abroad, her sister Josefina Teodoro,
to whom she had entrusted the
custody and safekeeping of the properties, had made representations to the
deputy sheriff and to the counsel of respondent Manila Surety regarding the
ownership of the petitioner over certain personal effects levied upon, but they
ignored the same and proceeded with the levy.

Thus, respondents caused the posting at several places notices of
sale, preparatory to disposing peti­tioner’s properties at public auction.

To stay the sale at public auction of petitioner’s properties, she
filed on November 3, 1961, with the Court of First Instance of Rizal a complaint with injunction, entitled ‘Trinidad Teodoro vs. Manila Surety & Fidelity Co., Inc. and the
Provincial Sheriff of Rizal‘, praying among other
things for damages and a writ of preliminary injunction which was accordingly
issued upon peti­tioner’s filing of a bond in the sum of P30,000.00 enjoining the pro­vincial sheriff of Rizal
from selling at public auction the properties claimed by said petitioner.

However, on November 9,
1961, respondent Manila Surety filed an ‘Omnibus Motion to
Dismiss the Com­plaint and to Dissolve Injunction’ to
which an opposition was filed.

After the parties had adduced their evidence in support of their
respective claims and after hearing their arguments, the lower court declared
that the properties in question are community pro­perties of Trinidad Teodoro (herein petitioner) and Jose Corominas,
Jr., dis­solved on May 12, 1962, the writ of preliminary injunction it
had issued and dismissed the complaint (Civil case No. 6865, CFI-Rizal).

Not satisfied, Trinidad Teodoro (as
plaintiff in said civil case No. 6865 of Rizal)
interposed an appeal.  In the meanwhile,
however, the Manila Surety filed on May
29, 1962, in the Court of First Instance of Manila a motion for
the issuance of a third alias writ of execution for the satisfaction of the
judgment debt in civil case No. 17014. 
Acting upon said motion the Court of First Instance of Manila issued on June 2, 1962, the ‘Third Alias
Writ of Execution.’

Thus, on June 7, 1962, deputies of the provincial sheriff of
Rizal again repaired to the residence of herein pe­titioner
at No. 794 Harvard St., Mandaluyong, and levied upon
the same pro­perties, with the exception of the baby grand piano and the
‘Columbia’ phono­graph which were the properties of Jose Corominas,
Jr. and which had already been sold at public auction November 6, 1961 for
P3,305.00, the Regal sewing machine owned by Nati
Fresco, the beds found in the boy’s and girl’s rooms, a marble dining table and chairs, a stereophonic phono­graph and
the G.E. television set.  And on the
following day, June 8, 1962, respondent provincial sheriff of Rizal advertised the sale at public auction of the
aforementioned properties claimed by herein petitioner, setting the date thereof
for June 16, 1962.”

Trinidad Teodoro thereupon filed an original petition for injunction
in the Court of Appeals to stop the scheduled sale.  On October 24, 1962 the said Court rendered the deci­sion now
under review, granting the writ prayed for and permanently enjoining respondent
provincial sheriff of Rizal from selling at public
auction the properties in question for the satisfaction of the judgment debt of
Jose Corominas, Jr.

The case for herein petitioner rests on the pro­position
that the said properties, claimed by respondent Teodoro
to be hers exclusively, pertain to the co-ownership established between her and
Jose Corominas, Jr., pursuant to Article 144 of the
Civil Code, and consequently may be levied upon on execution for the
satisfaction of the latter’s judgment debt. 
The facts relied upon in support of this theory of co-ownership are
stated in the decision of the court a quo and
quoted by the Court of Appeals, as follows:

“Jose Corominas, Jr. and Sonia Lizares were married in Iloilo
on January 5, 1935.  On November
29, 1954, a decree of divorce was granted by the Court of the State
of Nevada dissolving the bonds of
matrimony between Sonia Lizares and Jose Corominas,
Jr.  x x x

“Trinidad Teodoro met Jose Corominas, Jr. in Hongkong on October 30, 1955.  x x x On March 26,
1956, they went through a Budhist wedding
cere­mony in Hongkong.  Upon their return to the Philippines
they took up resi­dence in a rented house at No. 2305 Agno Street, Manila.  x x x On September 5,
1961, plaintiff and Jose Corominas, Jr.
were married for a second time on Washoe County,
Nevada, U.S.A.”

Additional pertinent facts, also mentioned in the decision under
review and not controverted by the parties, are that
Sonia Lizares is still living and that the conjugal
partnership formed by her marriage to Corominas was
dissolved by the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court of Manila upon their
joint petition, the decree of dissolution having been issued on October 21, 1957.

The principal issue here is the applicability of Article 144 of
the Civil Code to the situation thus created. 
This Article provides:

“When a man and a woman live together as husband and wife, but
they are not married, or their marriage is void from the beginning, the
property acquired by either or both of them through their work or industry or
their wages and salaries shall be governed by the rules on co-ownership.”

There is no doubt that the decree of divorce granted by the Court
of Nevada in 1954 is not valid under Philippine law, which has outlawed divorce
altogether; that the matri­monial bonds between Jose Corominas,
Jr. and Sonia Lizares have not been dissolved,
although their conjugal partnership was terminated in 1957; and that the former’s subsequent marriage in Hongkong
to Trinidad Teodoro is bigamous and void.

While Article 144 speaks, inter alia,
of a void marriage without any qualification, the Court of Appeals declined to
apply it in this case on two grounds: 
(1) the subsisting marriage of Corominas to
Sonia Lizares constitutes an impediment to a valid
marriage between him and respondent Trinidad Teodoro,
which impediment, according to a number of decisions of the Supreme Court,
precludes the establishment of a co-ownership under said article, and (2) the
funds used by said respondent in acquiring the properties in question were
“fruits of her paraphernal investments which
accrued before her marriage to Corominas.”

The decisions cited under the first ground are Christensen vs.
Garcia, 56 O.G. No. 16, p. 3199, Samson v. Salaysay,
56 O.G. No. 11, p. 2401; and Osmeña vs. Rodriguez, 54
O.G. No. 20, p. 5526.  In a proper case,
where it may be necessary to do so in order to resolve an unavoidable issue,
the precise scope of the “no impediment to a valid marriage” dictum in
said decisions will undoubtedly deserve closer examination, since it
establishes an exception to the broad terms of Article 144.  For one thing, a situation may arise
involving a conflict of rights between a co-ownership under that provision and
an existing conjugal partnership formed by a prior marriage where, for
instance, the husband in such marriage lives with another woman and with his
salary or wages acquires properties during the extra-marital cohabitation.  A ruling would then be in order to determine
which – as be­tween the co-ownership and the conjugal partnership – could claim
ascendancy insofar as the properties are concerned.

In the present case, however, we find no need to pass on this
question.  The particular properties
involved here, which were admittedly acquired by respondent Teodoro, cannot be
deemed to belong to such co-ownership because, as found by the trial court and
confirmed by the Court of Appeals, the funds used in acquiring said properties
were fruits of respondent’s paraphernal investments
which accrued before her “marriage” to Corominas.  In other words they were not acquired by either or both of the partners in
the void marriage through their work or industry or their wages and salaries,
and hence cannot be the subject of co-ownership under Article 144.  They remain respondent’s exclusive
properties, beyond the reach of execution to satisfy the judg­ment debt of Corominas.

Several procedural questions have been raised by petitioner.  First, that the injunction issued by the
Court of appeals was improper since it was not in aid of its appel­late
jurisdiction; second, that respondent Trinidad Teodoro
having elected to appeal from the decision of the Court of First Instance of Rizal,
she may not pursue the remedy of injunction as she did in this case; third, that
respondent’s petition for injunction in the Court of Appeals failed to state a
cause of action; fourth, that the proper remedy avail­able to respondent was by
filing a third-party claim; and finally, that the trial judge should have been
included as party respondent in the petition for injunction.

As to the first and second points, the tact is that respondent
Trinidad Teodoro perfected her appeal to the Court of
Appeals, which found that there were questions of fact involved therein, one of
them being whether the properties in question were acquired before or after her
void marriage to Corominas.  In aid of its appellate jurisdiction, there­fore,
the said Court could issue a writ of injunction.  Of course, what happened here was that before
the record on appeal could be filed (on June 18, 1962) or approved (on
September 8, 1962) a third alias writ of execution was issued by the trial
court (on June 2, 1962) and the properties in question were again levied upon
by the sheriff and advertised for sale on June 16, 1962.  It was impracticable for respondent to first
wait for the appeal to be elevated to and docketed in the Court of Appeals and
then secure the ancillary remedy of injunction
therein.  An independent petition for
injunction, under the circumstances, was not unjustified.

Respondent could, indeed, have filed a third party claim instead
as indicated in Rule 39, Section
15.  But then her sister Josefina Teodoro did make such a claim in her behalf after the
second alias writ of execution was issued, but it was ignored and the sheriff
proceeded with the levy.  In any event, a
third party claim is not an exclusive remedy: 
the same rule provides that nothing therein contained “shall
prevent such third person from vindicating his claim to the property by any
proper action.”

We do not deem it to be a reversible error for Trinidad Teodoro not to include the trial Judge as party-respondent
in her petition for injunction in the Court of Appeals.  The trial Judge would have been merely a nominal party anyway, and no
substantial rights of petitioner here have been prejudiced by the omission.

In view of the foregoing, the judgment of the Court of
Appeals is affirmed, with costs.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Bengzon, J.P., Zaldivar, Sanchez, and
Ruiz Castro, JJ.,
concur.