MARIA ANGALAN, NENA ANGALAN, DIONICIO ANGALAN, MAGDALENA ANGALAN, FRANCISCA ANGALAN, INIS ANGALAN, ROSALINO ANGALAN, AND JOSEFINA ANGALAN ALL OF WHOM ARE HEIRS OF ANGALAN SAMAL …

Angalan versus Delante

The Case

This is a disciplinary proceeding for disbarment. The complainants are the Angalan heirs, members of the Samal Tribe who describe themselves as illiterate, and they charge their former lawyer, Attorney Leonido Delante, with gross violation of the Code of Professional Responsibility. They say he was engaged to recover their land, that he advanced the repurchase money, and that he then placed the title in his own name and refused to return the property. The case matters because it shows the Supreme Court at its most severe toward a lawyer who preys on the very clients he is sworn to protect, and it fixes the rule that a lawyer who converts a client's property holds it in trust and answers for gross misconduct.

Procedural History

The complainants first went to the Regional Trial Court of Davao City, praying that the deed of absolute sale prepared by the Eustaquio spouses be declared void, that the transfer certificate in the respondent's name be declared void, and that he pay damages. While that civil case was pending, the complainants filed a disbarment complaint with the Supreme Court. The Court required the respondent to comment and then referred the matter to the Integrated Bar of the Philippines for investigation, report, and recommendation. The investigating commissioner found the respondent liable and recommended suspension for six months. The Board of Governors adopted the report but increased the suspension to one year, and forwarded the case to the Supreme Court for final action. The Court sustained the findings but found the recommended penalty too light.

Facts

The Angalan heirs owned a nine-hectare parcel of land in Kaputian, Samal, covered by an original certificate of title. In April 1971 they borrowed fifteen thousand pesos from the Eustaquio spouses and, to secure the loan, mortgaged about eight hectares and surrendered their title. The Eustaquio spouses prepared a document and had the complainants affix their thumb marks. When the complainants tried to pay and recover their title, the Eustaquios refused, and the complainants discovered that the document was in truth a deed of absolute sale, and that the title had already been transferred to Navarro Eustaquio.

The complainants engaged the respondent to recover the property. He acknowledged receipt of one thousand two hundred pesos as full payment of his professional fees for the recovery of the title. He then filed a complaint for reconveyance, invoking the homestead law's right of repurchase. The parties reached an amicable settlement for a repurchase price of thirty thousand pesos, which the trial court approved. The complainants had no money, so the respondent advanced the thirty thousand pesos, and in return they allowed him to possess the property and gather its produce until he was paid. In a letter to the barrio captain, the respondent himself wrote that the heirs had redeemed the property through him and that he was the owner of the money used for the redemption.

When the complainants tried to repay the thirty thousand pesos and recover the land, the respondent refused. They then learned that the title had been cancelled and a new title issued in his name. He claimed that a former Filipino client from New York had bought the property and had asked that it be registered in the respondent's name. The complainants later filed a motion to withdraw the disbarment complaint and an affidavit of desistance.

Issues

• Whether or not the complainants engaged the services of the respondent as their counsel.
• Whether or not the respondent was fully paid his professional fees.
• Whether or not the respondent violated Canons 16 and 17 of the Code of Professional Responsibility, amounting to gross misconduct warranting disbarment.
• Whether or not the complainants' desistance and withdrawal of the complaint bar the disciplinary proceeding.

Applicable Provisions

Canon 16 of the Code of Professional Responsibility provides:

A lawyer shall hold in trust all properties of his client that may come into his possession.

This is the core duty the respondent breached when he took the client's title in his own name.

Rule 16.03 of the Code of Professional Responsibility provides:

A lawyer shall deliver the funds and property of his client when due or upon demand.

The respondent failed this duty when he refused to return the property upon the complainants' demand.

Canon 17 of the Code of Professional Responsibility provides:

A lawyer shall be mindful of the trust and confidence reposed in him.

The respondent betrayed exactly that trust when he took advantage of his illiterate clients.

Section 5, Rule 139-B of the Rules of Court provides:

No investigation shall be interrupted or terminated by reason of the desistance, settlement, compromise, restitution, withdrawal of charges, or failure of the complainant to prosecute the same.

This disposes of the affidavit of desistance as immaterial to the proceeding.

Section 27, Rule 138 of the Rules of Court provides:

A member of the bar may be disbarred or suspended from his office as attorney by the Supreme Court for any deceit, malpractice, or other gross misconduct in such office, grossly immoral conduct, or by reason of his conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude, or for any violation of the oath which he is required to take before admission to the practice of law, or for a wilful disobedience of any lawful order of a superior court, or for corruptly or wilfully appearing as an attorney for a party to a case without authority so to do.

This is the statutory basis for the penalty of disbarment for gross misconduct.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court gave credence to the complainants' version and held that they did engage the respondent. Four circumstances made this obvious: he filed the reconveyance complaint right after they came to his office; in that complaint he stated that the plaintiffs had engaged the services of counsel; he issued a receipt for professional services in regard to the recovery of the title; and in his letter to the barrio captain he called himself their counsel.

On the second issue, the Court held that the complainants fully paid his fees, relying on the same receipt acknowledging full payment of professional services.

On the third issue, the Court found that the respondent violated Canons 16 and 17. Instead of holding the property in trust, he transferred the title to his name, refused to return it, and called the charges malicious. The Court rejected his story of the New York client as unbelievable, noting he gave no name, no affidavit, no passport, and no correspondence to substantiate it. It agreed with the commissioner that his attempt to salvage his acts was too flimsy to gain belief. Violation of Canons 16 and 17 constitutes gross misconduct.

On the fourth issue, the Court held the desistance immaterial, quoting the rule that no investigation shall be interrupted or terminated by reason of desistance, settlement, compromise, restitution, withdrawal of charges, or failure of the complainant to prosecute.

Finding the recommended penalty too light, the Court recalled its ruling in Hernandez versus Go, that a lawyer who takes advantage of his client's financial plight to acquire the latter's properties for his own benefit is destructive of public confidence in the profession, and deserves the ultimate penalty of expulsion.

Doctrine

A lawyer holds all properties of the client that come into his possession in trust, and must deliver them when due or upon demand. A lawyer must be mindful of the trust and confidence reposed in him, and taking advantage of an illiterate client's plight to acquire the client's property for himself is gross misconduct. Gross misconduct under Section 27, Rule 138 warrants disbarment, and the Supreme Court may impose a heavier penalty than that recommended by the Integrated Bar. Finally, a complainant's desistance or withdrawal does not terminate a disbarment investigation, because discipline is a matter of public interest and not a private quarrel.

Disposition

The Court found Attorney Leonido Delante guilty of violating Canons 16 and 17, disbarred him from the practice of law, and ordered his name stricken from the Roll of Attorneys.

Remember This

Memorize the line that a lawyer who takes advantage of his client's financial plight to acquire the client's property is destructive of public confidence and deserves the ultimate penalty of disbarment. Examiners use this case for the trust duties under Canons 16 and 17, for the rule that desistance does not bar disbarment, and for the principle that the Supreme Court may increase the penalty recommended by the Integrated Bar.