JOSE L. RIVERA, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. MAXIMO TRINIDAD, DEFENDANT AND APPELLEE.

This
is an action of unlawful detainer prosecuted to this court upon appeal
by the plaintiff, Jose L. Rivera, from a judgment of the Court of First
Instance of the City of Manila absolving the defendant and dismissing
the complaint with costs.

The lot which is the subject of
action is situated in the interior at 405 Misericordia, Manila, and
contains an area of 117.5 square meters. It was formerly the property
of Dolores Lanuza, who on April 27, 1921, executed a deed of conveyance
transferring it to the plaintiff for a recited consideration of
P10,000. Pursuant to this act the duplicate certificate of title in the
name of Dolores Lanuza was surrendered and another Torrens certificate
was issued to the plaintiff in due course.

In the year 1918,
while the title to the property was still in the name of Dolores
Lanuza, the defendant, Maximo Trinidad, entered upon the lot with the
consent of the owner and constructed thereon a building which he has
occupied, and still occupies, as an establishment for repairing and
tuning pianos. It appears that Dolores Lanuza and the wife of Maximo
Trinidad are akin to each other, and at the time Trinidad built his
shop on the lot in question, good feeling prevailed among the parties
and no one contemplated that their friendly relations would ever be
broken. No written contract was therefore made defining the rights of
Trinidad with respect to the occupancy of the place; but the
understanding was that he could occupy the property as long as he
pleased for the purposes of the business which he had installed upon
it, upon payment of compensation at the rate of P30 per month. After
the defendant had been occupying the place for a year or two, a
misunderstanding arose between Dolores Lanuza and the wife of Maximo
Trinidad, and the former decided to eject the occupants from the lot.
To this end an action of unlawful detainer was started by Dolores
Lanuza in 1920, but it was hotly contested by the defendants; and it
occurred to Dolores Lanuza, or those advising her, that the action
would have better success if the property should be transferred to some
other person, who, as purchaser, might exercise the power of
terminating the lease under article 1571 of the Civil Code. Dolores
Lanuza therefore transferred the property to her nephew, Jose L.
Rivera, as already stated. The lower court found that this transfer was
colorable and fictitious; and this finding may be accepted as true, in
the sense that the conveyance was made without payment of the recited
consideration and chiefly for the purpose of enabling Rivera to assume
the role of plaintiff.

Though the point is not strictly
relevant to the legal issue presented in the case it may be stated that
the plaintiff claims that the shop occupied by Maximo Trinidad on the
lot in question was built with money lent to him by Dolores Lanuza, and
he in fact admits that before or about the time the shop was built he
borrowed from Dolores Lanuza the sum of P1,500, which he has never
returned. Maximo Trinidad claims that the improvements on the lot cost
him the sum of P8,000, but we infer from the testimony of his wife that
this estimate includes the value of the machinery and apparatus in the
shop.

The action of unlawful detainer which had been begun
by Dolores Lanuza appears to have been dismissed during the pendency of
the present litigation; and when this action was first begun a question
was raised by the defendant as to whether the court of the justice of
the peace had jurisdiction of an action in which a purchaser seeks to
oust a tenant under the conditions existing in this case. In the Court
of First Instance it was held that neither the court of the justice of
the peace, as a court of original jurisdiction, nor the Court of First
Instance, in its appellate capacity, had jurisdiction of the action,
and the cause was thereupon dismissed. Upon appeal to this court,^[1]
however, it was held that the court below had jurisdiction of the case
and we reversed the decision of the Court of First Instance, with the
result that the cause was remanded to the Court of First Instance for
further proceedings, in which court the cause was then finally heard
upon its merits, and the action dismissed, as stated in the first
paragraph of this opinion. The question of jurisdiction having been
determined on the prior appeal is therefore not before us for
consideration in the present appeal; but it may be stated that the
present action was begun within a short while after the plaintiff had
made written demand upon the defendant to surrender the premises.

From what has been said it is obvious that the defendant, Maximo
Trinidad, must be treated as a tenant from month to month upon a lease
terminable without necessity of a special notice upon the expiration of
any month. (Art. 1581, Civ. Code.) This is all that can be made of it.
And it is a mistake to suppose that the plaintiff’s right of action is
based on article 1571 of the Civil Code, which authorizes a purchaser
of leased land to terminate any unregistered lease. The plaintiff is
not seeking to avoid an unregistered lease for a fixed term, which is
the matter contemplated in article 1571. He is merely proceeding in the
character of owner or vendee, under section 80 of the Code of Civil
Procedure, to recover possession from a tenant holding over after the
termination of the right to hold possession. When attention is given to
this point it is quite apparent that the plaintiff is entitled to
judgment, and the lower court erred in dismissing the case. So far as
this case is concerned it is wholly immaterial whether the plaintiff
has paid anything for the lot or not; and the supposed collusion
between him and Dolores Lanuza is likewise without significance.
Whether the case would be different if the plaintiff were attempting to
avoid a lease for a fixed period made by his predecessor does not here
require decision.

The trial court found, and this finding is
in our opinion supported by the weight of the evidence, that the
reasonable value of the occupation of the premises in question is P30
per month, the amount which prior to the beginning of this litigation
the defendant had been paying for the use of the property.

The rights of the defendant with respect to the improvements made on
the property by him must be governed by article 487 in relation with
article 1573 of the Civil Code. Under article 487 the defendant is
entitled to remove improvements made by himself so far as it is
possible to do so without injury to the property; and this means that
he may remove the improvements provided he leaves the property in
substantially the same condition as when he entered upon it. Articles
861 and 453 of the Civil Code, which define the rights between the
owner of land and builders of improvements thereon in good faith, are
not applicable as between landlord and tenant, since the Code supplies
specific provisions designed to cover their rights. Besides the tenant
cannot be said to be a builder in good faith as he has no pretension to
be owner. (Man., Com., 4th ed., vol. 4, p. 445.)

The judgment will therefore be reversed, and the plaintiff is declared
to be entitled to possession of the lot in question, subject to the
right of removal of the improvements as already stated. After payment
of compensation to the plaintiff at the rate of P30 per month for the
period of occupation since April 27, 1921, the balance of the fund that
has been accumulated in the hands of the clerk during the pendency of
this litigation by the monthly deposits effected by the defendant
pursuant to previous order of the court, will be returned to the
defendant.

So ordered, without express pronouncement as to costs.

Avanceña, C. J., Malcolm, Ostrand, Johns, and Villa-Real, JJ., concur.

Romualdez, J., took no part in this case.

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^[1] Rivera vs. Trinidad, G. R. No. 21242, promulgated March 22, 1924, not reported.