INTESTATE ESTATE OF MARTIN DE LOS REYES, DECEASED. ANTONIA FERNANDEZ, ADMINISTRATRIX AND APPELLEE, VS. MARCELA DE CASTRO, OPPONENT AND APPELLANT.

By
this appeal the appellant, Marcela de Castro, seeks to reverse or annul
various orders of the Court of First Instance of the City of Manila in
the probate proceedings over the estate of Martin de los Reyes,
deceased. The nature of these orders will be exhibited, so far as
necessary, in the body of the opinion.

It appears that the
deceased, one Martin de los Reyes, and the appellant, “Marcela de
Castro, were married in the municipality of Navotas, now of the
Province of Rizal, but then of the Province of Manila, on June 7, 1888.
The pair lived together as man and wife for several years, with their
residence in Navotas, and to the marriage was born a daughter, named
Rosario, who died long ago without issue. Soon after the insurrection
against Spain, or about the end of the year 1897, Marcela de Castro
abandoned her husband and has had nothing to do with him since. Martin
de los Reyes then moved to the City of Manila, where he passed for an
unmarried man. At the end of two years he made the acquaintance of
Antonia Fernandez and the two were married in the City of Manila on
March 11, 1900. The pair lived together as man and wife for more than
twenty-two years, until the death of Martin de los Reyes, which
occurred on February 4, 1922. Several children were born to the pair,
some of whom predeceased their father, but three are still living,
namely, Amada, Celia and Martin. No property appears to have been
accumulated by Martin de los Reyes while he lived with Marcela de
Castro; but during the period of his connection with Antonia Fernandez,
the two acquired valuable property.

In a decision of
December 26, 1923, his Honor, Judge Anacleto Diaz, found that Antonia
Fernandez had married Martin de los Reyes, believing in good faith that
he had capacity to marry; and that during the whole period of their
marital relations Antonia Fernandez was received on all sides by
friends and relations as the legitimate wife of Martin de los Reyes.

After the death of Martin de los Reyes, Antonia Fernandez qualified as
his administratrix, but before long Marcela de Castro, the first wife,
made her appearance and submitted a petition to the court, praying that
Antonia Fernandez be removed and that she (Marcela de Castro) be
appointed administratrix instead. The court acceded to this petition,
canceled the appointment of Antonia Fernandez, and made order that
Marcela de Castro should be substituted as administratrix of the
estate. This order was affirmed on appeal to the Supreme Court.^[1]

All the debts of the estate and costs of administration having been
paid, it became necessary for the court to ascertain the heirs and make
order for the distribution of the residue of the estate; and in passing
upon the respective rights of Marcela de Castro on the one hand and
Antonia Fernandez and her children on the other, Judge Diaz made the
decision of December 20, 1923, already referred to. In this decision,
after having stated the conclusion that Antonia Fernandez was a wife in
good faith of the deceased, the court applied the doctrine of the case
of Sy Joc Lieng vs. Encarnacion (16 Phil., 137), and held that
the rights, of Antonia Fernandez and of her living children by the
deceased were the same as if Antonia Fernandez had been in all respects
the lawful wife of the deceased. Accordingly his Honor disallowed the
pretension of Marcela de Castro and declared Antonia Fernandez and the
children named Amada, Celia and Martin the only heirs of the deceased
and adjudicated one-half of the inventoried property of the estate to
Antonia Fernandez as her share in the ganancial partnership. The other
half he adjudicated to the children in equal shares, subject to the
right of usufruct pertaining to Antonia Fernandez as the surviving
spouse. His Honor further ordered Marcela de Castro to render her final
account as administratrix within the period of fifteen days, to the end
that the property might be distributed and the administration closed.
This decision of Judge Diaz was permitted to become final, and though a
dilatory effort was made to get the case in the Supreme Court for
revision, the bill of exceptions was there dismissed.

On
December 4, 1924, Mr. Amzi B. Kelly, as attorney for Marcela de Castro,
presented an application to the Supreme Court for the writ of
certiorari, to restrain the lower court from proceeding under the
decision of Judge Diaz of December 26, 1923, and seeking the annulment
of said judgement on the ground that the court had lacked jurisdiction
to decide the matters therein determined. (G. R. No. 23398;) This court
denied the petition for the reason that no sufficient ground for the
issuance of the writ of certiorari was shown.^[1]
On December 31, 1924, the same attorney, in representation of Marcela
de Castro, filed a petition for mandamus in the Supreme Court, seeking
to compel the Honorable Pedro Conception, as judge of the probate
division of the Court of First Instance of Manila, to recognize the
rights of Marcela de Castro to the office of administratrix, in
conformity with the original decision in her favor. This application
for mandamus was denied on the ground that the complaint did not show
facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action.^[2]
Having been thus far unsuccessful in her attempts to be relieved from
the effects of the decision of Judge Diaz of December 26, 1923, Marcela
de Castro had recourse to the present proceeding by appeal; and
inasmuch as said decision had long since become final, the appeal is
limited to certain orders of the Court of First Instance, which are
either corollaries from the main decision or designed to carry it to
its logical consequences.

The orders which are the subject
of appeal are as follows: An order of the Honorable Pedro Concepcion of
November 12, 1924, in which he required Marcela de Castro to submit her
accounts as administratrix within ten days from notification of the
order; the order of December 17, 1924, in which the Honorable Pedro
Concepcion refused, upon the petition of Marcela de Castro, to set
aside the decision of Judge Diaz of December 26, 1923, and subsequent
orders made in the course of the administration; the order of December
15, 1924, in which Judge Pedro Concepcion authorized the administratrix
to mortgage the property of the deceased to pay a debt due to Florencio
Gonzalez Diez; the order of December 20, 1924, in which the Honorable
Pedro Concepcion overruled certain objections interposed by the
attorney for Marcela de Castro to the previous resolution of the court;
the order of December 20, 1924, in which Judge Concepcion required
Marcela de Castro to deliver promptly to the present administratrix,
Antonia Fernandez, certain papers of the deceased, including plans and
certificate of transfer of title and policies of insurance pertaining
to the property; the order of February 11, 1925, in which Judge
Concepcion authorized the sale of a mortgaged property belonging to the
estate and required Marcela de Castro and her attorney to deliver the
policy of insurance which was the subject of the order.

It is assigned as error in the ninth assignment that the lower court
erred in giving any consideration whatever to the decision of Judge
Anacleto Diaz of December 26, 1923, and in disregarding the prior
decision, dated October 20, 1922, in which the right of Marcela de
Castro to act as administratrix had been first recognized.

In the brief of the appellee attention is directed to the fact that the
orders which are the subject of the first, eighth and ninth errors were
not made the subject of appeal in the lower court, and it is also
insisted that this court has never acquired jurisdiction to review the
orders which are the subject of attack in the various other assignments
owing to a failure of the appellant to give bond for the appeal. In the
view we take of the case this proposition need not be passed upon,
since it is evident that the source of offense to the appellant is the
decision of December 26, 1923; and the only possible question for this
court is to decide whether or not that decision is a nullity. If the
court had jurisdiction to settle the matters which are the subject of
that judgment, it cannot be ignored, much less is it subject to
revision in this case, since the time for appeal from said decision has
passed.

The chief point of criticism with respect to the
decision referred to is its supposed inconsistency with the earlier
decision by which Marcela de Castro had ousted Antonia Fernandez from
the office of administratrix, and it is insisted that the decision of
Judge Diaz is a nullity because it reverses the other decision. With
this conclusion we are unable to agree. The subject of contention in
the earlier case was the title to the office of administratrix; and
although we said in that case that the marriage of Antonia Fernandez
with Martin de los Reyes was void ab initio, this was said with reference to the validity of the tie (vinculum matrimoni)
connecting the supposed spouses. Nothing was said, or intended to be
decided, with respect to the property rights of the two litigants in
the estate of the deceased. As to the children of Antonia Fernandez,
they were not even parties to that proceeding, and of course were not
affected by the issue of the controversy between the two women over the
office of administratrix. The final distribution of an estate is a step
that can be taken only after a determination of the persons who are
entitled to share; and Judge Diaz undoubtedly had the power to pass
upon the rights of Antonia Fernandez and her children, as was done in
the decision of December 26, 1923. (Ramirez vs. Gmur, 42 Phil.,
855, 869.) Whether there was error in the decision referred to is a
point which we are not called upon to decide; for even supposing that
there is an inconsistency between the decision of Judge Diaz and the
earlier decision, or error in the later decision, yet since the court
had the jurisdiction to determine heirship, as was done in the later
decision, it was incumbent upon the representation of Marcela de Castro
to have appealed in order to correct the error, if any had been
committed, in the decision which is the subject of attack. The
circumstance that a prior decision involving the same subject matter
had been made and that the point in controversy was res judicata did not, ipso facto,
deprive the court of the power to enter a different judgment. As is
well recognized a prior decision must be pleaded and relied upon and
the act of a court in ignoring such a decision makes an erroneous but
not a void decree.

From what has been said it is evident
that with respect to her claim to the estate of Martin de los Reyes the
appellant is now without remedy, a conclusion that is not less
consonant with the inherent justice of the case than with the legal
principles which must control.

Under the eighth assignment
of error the appellant questions the validity of various orders oh the
ground that the attorney for the appellant had not been served with
notice, as required by No. 10 of the Rules of Courts of First Instance.
If the errors attributed to the court were in fact committed there was
evidently no prejudice to the appellant inasmuch as, under the Diaz
decision, she had no interest left in the estate to be protected by her.
It follows that the orders appealed from should be affirmed, and it is so ordered, without costs.

Avanceña, C. J., Villamor, Ostrand, Romualdez, and Villa-Real, JJ., concur.

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^[1] Fernandez vs. De Castro, R. G. No. 20052, promulgated August 6, 1923, not reported.

^[1] De Castro vs. Diaz, decided by resolution of December 6, 1924, not reported.

^[2] De Castro vs. Concepcion, R. G. No. 23510, decided by resolution of January 29, 1925, not reported.

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DISSENTING

MALCOLM AND JOHNS, JJ.:

In so far as the facts are stated in the majority opinion, they are
clearly and well stated, but there is an omission of one very important
fact. It is true that on the 8th of February, 1922, Antonia Fernandez
was appointed as administratrix of the estate of Martin de los Reyes
upon a petition in which it was alleged that she was his wife. March 6,
1922, the appellant filed a petition in the probate court, in which she
alleged that she was the wife of the deceased, and that Antonia
Fernandez was not his wife, and in which the petitioner asked to have
Antonia Fernandez removed and to have herself appointed as
administratrix of the estate of her deceased husband. Based upon that
petition, a hearing was had in which the defendant here submitted proof
that she was the lawful wife of the deceased husband, and the plaintiff
submitted proof tending to show that the defendant was not the wife of
the deceased husband, but that she was his lawful wife.

Upon such issues, the lower court rendered a decision, the material portions of which are as follows:

“By
virtue of which it is declared that Marcela de Castro is the lawful
wife and widow of the deceased Martin de los Reyes and as such has the
legal right to administer the property of the said deceased.

“The
court is of the opinion that it is unnecessary to make any findings
with regard to the disposition of the property acquired during the time
Martin de los Reyes was married to Antonia Fernandez, because it is
satisfactorily proven that Marcela de Castro is the lawful wife of the
said Martin de los Reyes.

“And the appointment of the said
Antonia Fernandez is hereby cancelled and Marcela de Castro is named as
administratrix of the estate of the said Reyes upon her filing a bond
of P500.”

From this decision an appeal to
this court was taken, and on August 6, 1923, this court rendered an
opinion in which, among other things, it says:

“As
the facts disclose that Martin de los Reyes was married to Marcela de
Castro and that this conjugal partnership existed legally without being
dissolved at the time that the said Martin de los Reyes married Antonia
Fernandez, this second marriage is void ab initio.”

As a result of that decision, and on October 20, 1923, the defendant
was appointed administratrix of the estate of her deceased husband.
December 26, 1923, in the absence of the probate judge, who rendered
the former opinion, from which the appeal was taken to this court,
another Judge of the Court of First Instance made an order of
distribution of the property of the deceased husband in which he
ignored the legal and statutory rights of the appellant, and in legal
effect gave all of the property of the deceased to the appellee and her
children. No appeal was taken from that decision to this court, but in
the case which was appealed, this court held:

“That
Martin de los Reyes was married to Marcela de Castro and that this
conjugal partnership existed legally without being dissolved at the
time that the said Martin de los Reyes married Antonia Fernandez, this
second marriage is void ab initio.”

That decision established the fact which was then in litigation that
the appellant was the true and lawful wife of the deceased, and, as his
wife, the statute defines her property rights in her husband’s estate,
and there was nothing left for the lower court to do except to follow
and recognize that decision in its order of distribution. Although it
is true that no appeal was taken from the last decision, it is also
true that, if an appeal had been taken, this court could do nothing
more than to adhere to its former decision. For such reasons, as to the
appellant, the decision of the probate court, in ordering the
distribution of the property, was not only voidable, but it was null
and void, and in legal effect overrules the decision of this court, and
nullifies the statute of descent and distribution. (Shioji vs. Harvey [1922], 43 Phil., 333.)

For such reasons, plaintiff is entitled to relief from the force and
effect of a void judgment, and upon those grounds, we dissent.