OLYMPIA BALTAZAR, IN BEHALF OF HER MINOR SON, ARMENIO SERFINO, PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLANTS, VS. SERGIO SERFNIO, DEFENDANT AND APPELLEE.

Baltazar versus Serfino

The Case

This is a lecture on Baltazar versus Serfino, a 1965 decision of the Supreme Court on the support of an illegitimate child. Olympia Baltazar, acting for her minor son Armenio Serfino, sued Sergio Serfino, the boy's father, for support. The case matters for two reasons. First, it shows how the amount of support is fixed under the Civil Code, in proportion to the giver's resources and the recipient's needs. Second, it states a clean rule on the period of payment: support is demandable from the time the recipient needs it, but it is not paid except from the date of extrajudicial demand. It also confirms that attorney's fees may be recovered in an action for legal support.

Procedural History

The action was filed in the Court of First Instance of Negros Occidental. The trial court rendered judgment ordering Sergio Serfino to pay the minor Armenio the sum of fifteen pesos monthly as support, beginning July 1960, the date of the decision. Olympia Baltazar, for her son, appealed from that judgment. The appeal raised three points: that the monthly support should have been fifty pesos; that it should have been payable from the time Armenio was born, except for the period from May 1957 to April 1959 when the boy lived with his father; and that the father should have been ordered to pay one thousand pesos in attorney's fees. The case reached the Supreme Court on that appeal, and the Court modified the judgment of the trial court.

Facts

Armenio Serfino was born on December 19, 1943. He is the son of Olympia Baltazar, a widow, and Sergio Serfino, a married man. The father did not deny his duty to support the child; the dispute was over how much, and from when.

On the father's means, the trial court found that he earned three hundred sixty-five pesos from his rice mill and seven hundred twenty pesos from his ten-hectare parcel of land, whose yearly produce was one hundred twenty cavans of palay valued at six pesos per cavan. The trial court thus fixed his average annual income at one thousand eighty-five pesos, and used this as the basis for computing support, taking into account that he was also supporting a wife and three legitimate children.

Two facts, however, were not reflected in that computation. In his answer, the father admitted another source of income, a tailoring shop, which he said was not very profitable, although the evidence showed that in 1958 he realized five hundred seventy-three pesos and fifty centavos in gross receipts from it. It also appeared that he owned a house and lot in Kabankalan, Negros Occidental, and so did not have to pay rent for his family's residence. Before the suit, the mother had made an extrajudicial demand on the father in June 1959.

Issues

• Whether or not the monthly support of fifteen pesos awarded by the trial court should be increased.
• Whether or not support should be paid from the time Armenio was born, or only from the date of extrajudicial demand.
• Whether or not the father should be ordered to pay attorney's fees.

Applicable Provisions

Article 296 of the Civil Code provides:

The amount of support, according to Article 296 of the Civil Code, shall be in proportion to the resources or of the giver and to the needs of the recipient.

This is the measure the Court used in testing whether fifteen pesos was the right amount, and it is why the father's tailoring shop and his rent-free residence mattered.

Article 298 of the Civil Code provides:

As to when payment thereof should begin, the law says that the obligation to give support shall be demandable from the time the person who has a right to receive the same needs it for maintenance, but it shall not be paid except from the date it is extrajudicially demanded.

This fixes the starting point of payment, and it is why the Court rejected the claim for support running from the child's birth.

Article 2308 of the Civil Code, paragraph 6, provides:

In actions for legal support, even in the absence of stipulation, attorney's fees are recoverable.

This is the statutory basis for awarding attorney's fees even though the parties had no agreement on them.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court increased the monthly support from fifteen pesos to twenty-five pesos. The trial court had computed the father's income at one thousand eighty-five pesos a year, but that figure ignored the tailoring shop, which yielded five hundred seventy-three pesos and fifty centavos in gross receipts in 1958, and ignored the fact that the father owned his family's house and lot and paid no rent. Under Article 296, support must be in proportion to the resources of the giver and the needs of the recipient, and on the whole record twenty-five pesos was the correct measure.

On the second issue, the Court held that payment should begin in June 1959, when the extrajudicial demand was made, and not from the child's birth. The Court applied Article 298 exactly as written: the obligation is demandable from the time the recipient needs it for maintenance, but it is not paid except from the date it is extrajudicially demanded. The demand in June 1959 therefore set the starting point.

On the third issue, the Court awarded three hundred pesos as attorney's fees. It laid down the rule that where the duty to support is admitted, but in spite of demands the duty is not complied with and the person to be supported has to resort to the court to enforce his right, then the person obliged to give support must pay reasonable attorney's fees. It cited its earlier rulings in Mercado versus Ostrand and Fanlo de Peyer versus Peyer, and grounded the award on paragraph 6 of Article 2308 of the Civil Code, which allows attorney's fees in actions for legal support even without stipulation. Three hundred pesos was, in the Court's view, a reasonable amount.

Doctrine

Three rules should be carried into the examination room. First, the amount of support is fixed in proportion to the resources of the giver and the needs of the recipient under Article 296 of the Civil Code; the court must look at the giver's actual means, including income from every source and savings such as a rent-free residence, and not merely at one computed average. Second, under Article 298, support is demandable from the time the recipient needs it, but it is not paid except from the date of extrajudicial demand; hence the award runs from the demand, not from birth. Third, in actions for legal support, attorney's fees are recoverable even in the absence of stipulation under paragraph 6 of Article 2308, and where the duty to support is admitted but ignored despite demands, forcing the recipient to sue, reasonable attorney's fees must be paid.

Disposition

The Supreme Court modified the judgment of the trial court and ordered Sergio Serfino to pay Armenio Serfino twenty-five pesos monthly from June 1959 and three hundred pesos as attorney's fees, with costs. The mother and her son prevailed on all three points of the appeal.

Remember This

Memorize the line that support is demandable from the time of need but payable only from the date of extrajudicial demand. Examiners use this case for the computation of support under Article 296 and for the rule that attorney's fees are recoverable in actions for legal support.