Special Proceeding. March 25, 1914
IN THE MATTER OF THE COMPLAINT OF CATALINA CEBU AGAINST ATTORNEY EMILIANO TRIA TIRONA.
TRENT, J.:
Paman, preferred charges of unprofessional conduct against Attorney Emiliano
Tria Tirona, arising out of his connection with the settlement of the said
estate. This court referred these charges and the answer of Attorney Tirona
thereto to the Attorney-General for investigation on October 4, 1913, and his
report is now before us for consideration.
Catalina Cebu was appointed administratrix of the estate on August 1, 1910,
and assumed charge thereof on August 19, 1910. There were four surviving
children, Sinforosa, aged 16; Ricardo, aged 13; Trinidad, aged 7; and Ligaya, 1
year old. At the time these charges were preferred, Sinforosa was married to one
Crispulo Malia.
On January 17, 1913, Judge Gale of the Court of First Instance ordered the
administratrix to present to him on or before January 21, 1913: (1) the accounts
of her administration; (2) a detailed report of the assets of the estate with
their incumbrances, if any; (3) a list of the heirs; (4) a liquidation of all
the sociedades in which the deceased had participated and of the
conjugal partnership; (5) a tentative plan for the partition of the estate. The
following day, the administratrix presented her accounts, showing a balance in
favor of the estate for the year ending, August 18, 1911, of P78.26; for the
year ending August 18, 1912, a balance of P395; and for the period August 19 to
December 31, 1912, of P66. On January 21, 1913, the court appointed Catalina as
the guardian of her minor children. The following day, January 22, a complaint
signed by the daughter, Sinforosa, was filed with the clerk, in which it is
alleged that Catalina had sold and mortgaged some of the property of the estate,
and that the income of the estate had been disposed of in some unknown manner.
On January 24, the administratrix asked for additional time within which to
prepare the tentative plan of partition of the estate. On February 28, according
to her own testimony, the administratrix filed a document in the court entitled
“Additional Statement of Accounts,” in which she shows a total balance in favor
of the estate for the period August 18, 1910, to December 31, 1912, of
P5,806.55. On February 10, 1913, she filed another statement of accounts in the
office of the clerk, materially at variance with both of the former statements,
in which a balance is due the estate for the year ending August 18, 1911, of
P1,852.56; for the year ending August 18, 1912, P457.04, and for the period
August 19 to December 31, 1912, P452.28. With this third statement of her
accounts, she filed a motion asking that it be substituted for the other two,
and alleging that the second statement filed on February 28 was false and that
she had been induced to sign it through the fraud and deceit of the respondent
attorney. Further postponements were made, and the case finally culminated in a
compromise agreement between the parties, under which the assets of the estate
were divided. This compromise agreement is dated March 24, 1913.
Catalina Cebu filed her complaint against the respondent attorney on
September 27, 1913. This complaint may be said to contain two charges: One that
the respondent attorney acted maliciously in preparing the document signed by
the daughter Sinforosa, in which she alleged irregularities in her mother’s
administration of the estate; and (2) that the respondent attorney induced her,
by means of false and fraudulent representations, to sign the “Additional
Statement of Accounts” presented by her on February 28, 1913, in which she
acknowledges that she has a balance in favor of the estate of something over
P5,000.
The first charge is easily disposed of. Sinforosa states that she sought the
assistance of Tirona in his professional capacity in relation to her mother’s
misconduct in office; that she represented to him that her mother had sold some
of the property of the estate; and that he prepared the document in question
upon her express solicitation, after she had refused to follow his advice of
attempting to settle the matter amicably with her mother. This is all the
testimony in the record on this point. As a matter of fact, it appears that
there was good reason for filing the complaint, as the administratrix herself
admitted, during the course of the present investigation, that she had delivered
land to one Vicente Acosta, who tilled it and paid the taxes, thus indicating
that the land was being improperly disposed of. It is also apparent from the
conflicting statements of account submitted by her under dates of January 18 and
February 10, that she had not kept her accounts during her administration in the
proper manner. The conduct of the respondent attorney in preparing the complaint
of Sinforosa was perfectly proper.
The second charge is based upon the document entitled “Additional Statement
of Accounts” filed by the administratrix on February 28, 1913. It is admitted
that this document was prepared by Tirona at his house on the evening of
February 27, 1913. Sinforosa and her husband, her mother Catalina, and Andres
Villanueva, justice of the peace of the municipality and, up to that time, a
trusted personal friend of Catalina, came to his house in connection with the
dispute which had arisen between Sinforosa and her mother over the affairs of
the estate. It is alleged by the administratrix that she had gone there at the
solicitation of Sinforosa and her husband to discuss a plan for the partition of
the estate, and that she signed the document in question upon the
representations of the respondent attorney, believing it to be a tentative plan
for the partition and distribution of the estate. It is asserted by Sinforosa
and her husband that they went there at the earnest solicitation of the
administratrix to endeavor to arrive at an amicable agreement regarding the
charges made by Sinforosa in her complaint to the court above referred to, and
that the additional statement of accounts was the result of a compromise
agreement between the parties. As Attorney Tirona prepared the document in
question, it is clear that if the conference was concerning the partition of the
estate, and the administratrix signed the said document believing that it
related to that matter, the charges against Tirona are serious. If, on the other
hand, the subject of the conference was a compromise agreement concerning the
accounts of the administratrix and the latter signed the document knowing that
it greatly increased her liabilities to the estate, the charges are false and
the respondent attorney was guilty of no professional misconduct whatever.
To show how she had been deceived, the administratrix testified that she sat
at one end of the room, away from the other persons present, and that her
daughter Sinforosa, the latter’s husband, Tirona, and Villanueva talked in
Spanish, a language which she did not understand; that at the conclusion of the
conference, Tirona prepared the document and handed it to Sinforosa, who in turn
handed it to her (the administratrix), saying that it was all right and that she
should sign it; that she stayed at the home of Villanueva that night. She did
not ask Villanueva what the contents of the document were that night, because
the hour was late when they reached Villanueva’s house and everyone immediately
retired. She did not ask him the next morning because she did not have time to
do so before the train left for Cavite, where she went to present the document
to the court. Yet she stated later on in her testimony that on the morning
following the conference and before train time, she asked Villanueva about the
document and he told her it was all right and that she should sign it. More than
this, she testified that she went over to the house of her daughter Sinforosa
before train time, and asked her and her husband about it, both of whom also
told her that the document was all right and that she should sign it. On
arriving at the court she was on the stairway when the judge called her name,
and the sheriff told her to hurry up. She thereupon went into the clerk’s office
where Teofilo Viado was acting as clerk, and asked him to affix her name to the
document, which he did, and then she placed her mark on the document and hurried
into the courtroom. Viado did not have time to examine the document. She simply
told him it was all right and that she wanted to sign it.
On the other
hand, it is perfectly clear from the record that the administratrix knew that
her daughter was dissatisfied with her administration and the accounts presented
by her. The administratrix herself admits that at a conference with her daughter
at which Viado was present, she had agreed to render new accounts. This was only
a short time before the meeting on February 27 at which the statement of
accounts was prepared by Tirona. The administratrix knew that Tirona had
prepared the complaint submitted to the court by her daughter in which her
administration was seriously attacked; she knew that this document contained
nothing relating to the partition of the estate, and that her daughter’s
grievance did not relate to that matter at all. There is nothing to show that
the daughter changed her position between January 22, the date the complaint was
filed, and the night of February 27, when the conference at the house of Tirona
took place, and that she was then seeking to partition the estate. On the
contrary, the administratrix herself admits, as above stated, that shortly
before that conference she had a talk with her daughter, as a result of which
she had manifested her desire to submit new accounts. It is highly improbable
that she went to Tirona’s house on the night of February 27 with the
understanding that they were to discuss the partition of the estate. That her
daughter was not at all satisfied with the practically negligible balance in
favor of the estate represented by her accounts of January 18, 1913, and that
Sinforosa had sought the services of Tirona in securing, though l&gal
channels, an investigation of the affairs of the estate, were facts amply
sufficient to put her on her guard in attending the conference in question. She
now professes complete ignorance of what the other persons who attended the
conference were talking about, and of the contents of the document prepared
thereat by Tirona. As administratrix of the estate, as the owner of one-half the
assets of the estate, which consisted entirely of conjugal property, it is
incredible that she should sit dumb in one end of the room while the others did
all the talking in an unknown language and made arrangements for the partition
of the assets of the estate. It is also incredible that, after all the trouble
she had had with these very people over her accounts, that she should leave that
conference believing that the partition of the estate was the only matter
discussed. She testified that she was endeavoring to ascertain the following
morning before she took the train for Cavite what the document related to. She
asked Villanueva; she asked her daughter, and the latter’s husband; and received
an unvarying reply from each that the document was all right and that she should
sign it. Upon the strength of this information, and fully cognizant of all her
past troubles with her daughter over the accounts, and knowing that her
interests in the property were large, she appeared before Viado in the clerk’s
office the following morning, saying to him that the document was all right, and
requesting that he affix her name to it. We cannot credit her, a woman in the
full possession of her faculties, with such childish simplicity and confidence.
Nor can we believe that Viado, accustomed to handle documents and well
acquainted with the affairs of the estate, who, in fact, had prepared every
document presented by the administratrix in reference to her administration, who
had shortly before endeavored to reconcile mother and daughter in reference to
the accounts of the estate, could have signed the administratrix’ name to the
document in question without making at least a superficial examination of it,
and discovering that it was a most substantial correction of the accounts
prepared by him and submitted by the administratrix on January 18, 1913. This
document is an exceedingly simple affair and consists of barely two and one-half
typewritten pages. On the last page, where Viado affixed the administratrix’
signature, is a heading in capital letters, “An explanation in reference to the
accounts already presented.” And a mere glance at any one of the pages of this
document would have been sufficient to indicate its character to Viado, who had
taken such a large interest in the administration of the estate. The story that
Viado did not discover the nature of the document before he affixed the
administratrix’ name to it is too improbable to be believed. If she herself knew
the nature of this document and if Viado also knew its contents, there is
absolutely no basis to her contention that Tirona falsely represented to her
that the document related to the partition of the estate.
The voluminous record in that case is excellently discussed in the report of
the Attorney-General. We have discussed the main facts of the case. The
remainder of the record but serves to strengthen the impression that the
administratrix’ charges against the respondent attorney are without merit. We
fully concur in the recommendation of the Attorney-General that the charges
ought to be dismissed. The respondent, Emiliano Tria Tirona, is therefore
absolved from the charges.
Arellano, C. J., Carson, Moreland, and Araullo, JJ.,
concur.