EMILIO PURUGGANAN, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. FELISA PAREDES AND TRANQUILINO BARRERAS, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.

Purugganan versus Paredes

The Case

This is an appeal by Emilio Purugganan, owner of registered residential lots in Bangued, Abra, against his neighbors Felisa Paredes and Tranquilino Barreras, who built a house beside his property. Purugganan sued to enforce an easement of drainage annotated on his Torrens title and to stop the defendants from claiming an easement of light and view over his land. The case matters because it teaches two examinable rules at once: how a summary judgment may properly rest on the pleadings and a commissioner's report, and how registration under the Torrens system cuts off an unannotated easement on the servient estate.

Procedural History

Purugganan filed a complaint in the Court of First Instance of Abra. At pre-trial, the court ordered the Provincial Land Officer to relocate the monuments and fix the boundary between the parties' lots. Purugganan then moved for summary judgment, reserving only his claim for damages. The defendants opposed, insisting their answer raised genuine issues of fact. The trial court granted summary judgment in the plaintiff's favor, ordering the defendants to reconstruct their roof and eaves, to move or close their windows, and enjoining them from further encroachment. On the defendants' motion for reconsideration, the court appointed its Clerk of Court as commissioner to inspect the premises and measure the eaves. The commissioner submitted his report, and the defendants manifested their agreement with its findings. The trial court then denied reconsideration. The defendants appealed directly to the Supreme Court.

Facts

Purugganan owned Lots 1 and 2 in the poblacion of Bangued, Abra, covered by a Torrens certificate of title issued in 1951. His lots lie adjacent to and south of the lot of Felisa Paredes. When Paredes opposed the registration of his lots, the parties entered into an amicable settlement, embodied in the decree of registration, by which Purugganan agreed to respect an easement of drainage over a portion of his lots, eight and one half meters long and one meter wide, so that rain water from the roofing of a house to be built by Paredes over the ruins of her brick wall would fall on his land.

In the latter months of 1950, the defendants reconstructed a house on their lot, placing its southern wall on the old brick wall and installing three windows on each of the first and second floors facing Purugganan's lots. Purugganan repeatedly demanded that the construction conform to the easement and that the windows be closed, but the defendants refused. They also barred him from building a party wall on his own land.

In their answer, the defendants claimed the brick wall belonged to them exclusively, that their house had been rebuilt on the ruins of a Spanish era house whose windows had always faced the plaintiff's lot, and that they had acquired an easement of light and view by user since time immemorial. The commissioner later found that the eaves of their house jutted ninety eight centimeters into the plaintiff's property and ran eight meters and twenty centimeters in length, so that in heavy rain the water fell more than one meter from the boundary line.

Issues

• Whether or not the trial court properly rendered summary judgment, there being no genuine issue of material fact raised by the pleadings and the commissioner's report.
• Whether or not the defendants violated the conditions of the easement of drainage annotated on the plaintiff's certificate of title.
• Whether or not the defendants acquired an easement of light and view over the plaintiff's registered land.

Applicable Provisions

Section 3 of Rule 34, then in force, defines when summary judgment may be rendered:

Summary judgment is employed as a method of disposing a case when the pleadings, depositions, admission and affidavits filed by the parties show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.

This is the procedural basis for disposing of the case without a trial on the merits.

Section 39 of Act Number 496, the Land Registration Act, governs what passes and what is cut off by a Torrens certificate:

Every person receiving a certificate of title in pursuance of a decree of registration shall hold the same free of all encumbrance except those noted on said certificate.

This is why the unannotated easement of light and view cannot burden the plaintiff's registered land.

The same section preserves easements appurtenant to registered land that failed to be registered:

But if there are easements or other rights appurtenant to a parcel of registered land which for any reason have failed to be registered, such easements or rights shall remain so appurtenant notwithstanding such failure, and shall be held to pass with the land until cut off or extinguished by the registration of the servient estate or in any other manner.

This clause explains why an easement not noted on the servient title is extinguished upon its registration.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that summary judgment was proper. The defendants' denials, read closely, attacked the validity of the drainage easement rather than the allegation that their roof protruded beyond the prescribed distances. Once the trial court ordered the ocular inspection and the defendants expressly conformed to the commissioner's findings, nothing remained but for the court to evaluate the pleadings and the report. There was no genuine issue of material fact requiring trial.

On the second issue, the Court held that the defendants misread the decree. The easement is one of receiving water falling from the roof, so the prescribed distances measure where the rain water falls on the plaintiff's land, not the width and length of the roof itself. The commissioner's measurements showed the eaves jutting ninety eight centimeters into the plaintiff's property, with water falling beyond one meter in heavy rain. The violation was therefore established.

On the third issue, the Court held that no easement of light and view was acquired. The plaintiff's land was registered in 1951, and only the drainage easement was annotated. Applying Section 39 of Act Number 496 and its own ruling in Cid versus Javier, the Court held that even an easement acquired by prescription is cut off by the registration of the servient estate without annotation. The defendants' claim of user since time immemorial was immaterial, and their failure to intervene in the registration proceedings, as they had done for the drainage easement, made the claim flimsy.

Doctrine

First, summary judgment lies where the pleadings, affidavits, and a commissioner's report, accepted by the parties, leave no genuine issue of material fact, and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law under Section 3 of Rule 34.

Second, an easement of receiving water falling from the roof burdens the servient estate only to the extent of the area where the water actually falls, as fixed in the decree of registration, not to the dimensions of the dominant owner's roof.

Third, under Section 39 of Act Number 496, a Torrens certificate frees the registered owner from all encumbrances not noted on it, and an easement of light and view, even if acquired by prescription, is extinguished by the registration of the servient estate without annotation.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the summary judgment of the trial court in favor of Purugganan, with costs against the defendants.

Remember This

Memorize this line: registration of the servient estate cuts off an easement not annotated on the certificate. Examiners use this case for summary judgment based on a commissioner's report and for the rule that an unannotated easement of light and view does not survive Torrens registration.