PAULINO GARCIA, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. MARIA BISAYA, ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES.

On May 20, 1952, plaintiff filed a complaint against the defendants in the
Court of First Instance of Oriental Mindoro, alleging that on November 12, 1938,
defendants executed in favor of plaintiff a deed of sale covering a parcel of
land therein described; that the said land “was erroneously designated by the
parties in the deed of sale as an unregistered land (not registered under Act
496, nor under the Spanish Mortgage Law) when in truth and in fact said land is
a portion of a big mass of land registered under Original Certificate of Title
No. 6579 in the Office of the Register of Deeds of Oriental Mindoro”; that
despite persistent demand from plaintiff to have the error corrected, defendants
have refused to do so. Plaintiff, therefore, prayed for judgment ordering
defendants to make the aforesaid correction in the deed of sale.

Answering the complaint, defendants denied having executed the alleged deed
of sale and pleaded prescription as a defense. Traversing the plea of
prescription, plaintiff alleged, among other things, that he “was without
knowledge of the error sought to be corrected’ at the time the deed of sale was
executed and for many years thereafter,” having discovered the said error “only
recently”.

Without trial on the merits and merely upon motion, the lower court dismissed
the case on the ground that plaintiff’s action had already prescribed. From this
order plaintiff has appealed directly to this Court.

Both appellant and appellees apparently regard the present action as one for
the reformation of an instrument under Chapter 4, Title II, Book IV of the new
Civil Code. Specifically, the object sought is the correction of an alleged
mistake in a deed of sale covering a piece of land. The action being upon a
written contract, it should prescribe in ten years counted from the day it could
have been instituted. Obviously, appellant, could not have instituted his action
to correct an error in a deed until that error was discovered. There being
nothing in the pleadings to show that the error was discovered more than ten
years before the present action was filed on May 20, 1952, while, on the other
hand, there is allegation that the error was discovered “only recently”, we
think the action should not have been dismissed as having already prescribed
before the factual basis for prescription had been established and clarified by
evidence.

We note, however, that appellant’s complaint states no cause of action, for
it fails to allege that the instrument to the reformed does not express the real
agreement or intention of the parties. Such allegation is essential since the
object sought in an action for reformation is to make an instrument conform to
the real agreement or intention of the parties. (Art. 1359, new Civil Code; 23
R. C. L., par. 2.) But the complaint does not even allege what the real
agreement or intention was. How then is the court to know that the correction
sought will make the instrument conform to what was agreed or intended by the
parties? It is not the function of the remedy of reformation to make a new
agreement, but to establish and perpetuate the true existing one. (23 R. C. L.,
par. 4, p. 311.)

Moreover, courts do not reform instruments merely for the sake of reforming
them, but only to enable some party to asserts right under them as reformed. (23
R. C. L., par. 2). If the instrument in the present case is reformed by making
it state that the land therein conveyed is already covered by a Torrens
certificate of title, what right will the appellant, as vendee, be able to
assert under the reformed instrument when according to himself—or his counsel
states in his brief—said title is in the name of Torcuata Sandoval, obviously a
person other than the vendor? Would not the sale to him then be ineffective,
considering that he would be in the position of one who knowingly purchased
property not belonging to the vendor?

Perhaps appellant’s real grievance is that he has been led to enter into the
contract of sale through fraud or misrepresentation on the part of the vendor or
in the mistaken belief that, as stated in the deed, the property he was buying
was unregistered land. But if that be the case, article 1359 of the new Civil
Code expressly provides that “the proper remedy is not reformation of the
instrument but annulment of the contract.” Appellant’s complaint, however, does
not ask for the annulment of the deed; neither does it contain allegations
essential to an action for that purpose.

In view of the foregoing, the order of dismissal must be as it is hereby
affirmed, not because appellant’s action has already prescribed, but because his
complaint states no cause of action. Without pronouncement as to costs.

Bengzon, Padilla, Montemayor, Jugo, Bautista Angelo, Labrador,
Concepcion, and Reyes, J. B. L., JJ., concur.

Order affirmed.