A. P. SEVA AND ERNESTO J. SEVA, PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLEES, VS. SOCORBO NOLAN AND CUSTOWO ARIMAS, DEFENDANTS. CUSTODIO ARIMAS, APPELLANT.

The questions of law involved in this
appeal are two, to wit: (1) Whether or not the fees of the attorneys,
who have defended a married woman in a criminal action for the crime of
adultery brought by her husband, of which she was acquitted >by the
court, are chargeable to the conjugal partnership, and (2) whether or
not a certificate of title, issued under the Torrens system of
registration in favor of a married woman, covering a parcel of land
sold by her without the permission of her husband, may be annulled to
the prejudice of a purchaser in good faith, upon subsequent evidence
presented by said husband to the effect that said property was acquired
at the expense of the common fund of their conjugal partnership.

In the Court of First Instance of Occidental Negros, where civil
case No. 6627 was prosecuted, the parties submitted a stipulation of
facts wherein it is admitted that in July, 1934, the defendant Custodio
Arimas filed a complaint for adultery against the defendant Socorro
Nolan and one Cipriano Villanueva in the justice of the peace court of
Murcia, the case having been forwarded to the Court of First Instance
where it was tried in the month of October, 1934. Prior to the trial,
the defendant Socorro Nolan engaged the attorneys, plaintiffs herein,
to defend her before said court in the above stated case, having bound
herself to pay for their professional services the amount of three
thousand five hundred pesos, on account of which she paid the sum of
one hundred pesos and executed in favor of the plaintiffs a deed of
sale with pacto de retro for the sum of three hundred pesos,
of a certain parcel of land exclusively belonging to her, with a
Torrens title issued in her favor. In the deed of sale with pacto de retro
executed on July 23, 1934, the defendant reserved the right to
repurchase the parcel of land in question on or before September 24,
1934.

It is likewise admitted by the parties that the plaintiffs herein
capably rendered their professional services to the defendant Socorro
Nolan for several weeks, having had to cope with several well known
attorneys, resulting in Socorro Nolan’s acquittal of the criminal
charge of adultery preferred against her.

Inasmuch as the defendant Socorro Nolan failed to pay the balance
of the plaintiffs’ fees and to repurchase the aforesaid parcel of land,
a complaint was filed against her and her husband, the defendant
Custodio Arimas, for the recovery of the sum of three thousand one
hundred pesos and to compel said defendant Custodio Arimas to deliver
to the plaintiffs the certificate of title of lot No. 60 of Murcia,
Occidental Negros. The defendant Socorro Nolan acquiesced in the
complaint but her husband denied it in all its parts.

Upon consideration of the foregoing facts and of the failure of the
defendant Custodio Arimas to question the amount of the fees claimed by
the plaintiffs or even to allege, according to the court, that said
fees are unreasonable, and there being evidence of record clearly
showing that the fees claimed in the complaint are entirely reasonable,
the court rendered judgment as prayed for in the complaint ordering the
defendant Custodio Arimas, in accordance with a motion filed by the
plaintiffs, to deliver to the plaintiffs or to any of them, within the
period of five days from the date the judgment becomes final, the
certificate of title of lot No. 60 of the Cadastre of Murcia,
Occidental Negros, to enable the plaintiffs to annotate thereon the
deed of sale with pacto de retro in their favor, and
sentencing the defendants to pay to the plaintiffs the sum of three
thousand one hundred pesos, the balance of their fees, with legal
interest thereon from the date of the filing of the complaint until
fully paid, said payment to be made within the period of ten days from
receipt of notice of the decision, otherwise the clerk of court, upon
petition of the plaintiffs, shall issue a writ of execution against the
defendant Arimas, unless he files a bond to secure the amount of the
judgment in case he should appeal therefrom. The defendant Arimas was
likewise ordered to pay the costs of the trial.

Said defendant Custodio Arimas appealed from the judgment after the denial of his motion for a new trial, to which he excepted.

One of the assignments of error made by the defendant-appellant
consists in that the court, according to him, erred in not declaring
null and void the contract entered into by the defendant Socorro Nolan
and the plaintiffs-appellees relative to the latter’s professional fees,
in so far as it is sought to affect thereby the property of the
conjugal partnership of Socorro Nolan and the defendant Custodio Arimas.

Article 1408 of the Civil Code reads:

“The conjugal partnership shall be liable for:

“1. All the debts and obligations contracted during the marriage by the
husband, and also for those contracted by the wife in the cases in
which she can legally bind the partnership.”

The Supreme Court of Spain, interpreting the foregoing provision in its decision of April 15, 1896, stated as follows:

“* * * In accordance with this principle and with
the general meaning of all the provisions establishing and governing
the respective rights and obligations of the spouses, the husband is
bound to answer to the wife for the amount of the expenses incurred by
her in suits which she is compelled to1 maintain against her husband, in defense of her rights.” (Underscoring ours.) (9 Manresa, 3d edition, 650.)

In support of the proposition that the husband is bound to defray
the expenses incurred by his wife in suits between her and her husband,
said commentator, in the above-cited volume, pages 651 and 652, cites
other decisions of the Supreme Court of Spain, as those of January 26,
1897, October 14, 1905, and November 12, 1905, all of which interpret
the true meaning of the principle contained in article 1408, paragraph
1, of the Civil Code, providing that the conjugal partnership shall
also be liable for all the debts and obligations contracted by the wife
in the cases in which she can legally bind the partnership. One of
those cases is the obligation to pay litigation expenses in suits
between her and her husband. Said decisions cite article 60 of the
Civil Code, in accordance with which the wife may appear at the trial
without her husband’s permission to defend herself in a criminal
proceeding or in any action between her and her husband. Now then: with
respect to article 60 of the Civil Code, cited in said decisions of the
Supreme Court of Spain in connection with article 1408, it should be
stated that even if said article 60 is not in force in the Philippines,
being embraced among those the operation of which was suspended by
the decree of December 29, 1889 (Ibanzez vs. Ortiz, 5 Phil., 325; Sy Joe Lieng vs. Encarnacion, 16 Phil., 137; Del Prado vs. De la Fuente, 28 Pihil., 23; and Goitia vs.
Campos Rueda, 35 Phil., 252), the above-cited decisions of the Supreme
Court of Spain do not thereby lose their force and authority, inasmuch
as we have section 115, No. 2, of the Code of Civil Procedure,
substantially analogous to article 60 of the Civil Code, which reads:
“When a married woman is a party, her husband must be joined with her,
except when the action is between herself and her husband.”
(Underscoring ours.) This means that the wife may by herself maintain
an action without her husband’s intervention when she is compelled to
litigate with him.

Under the above-cited legal provisions and decisions, and the recent ruling of this court in the case of Arroyo vs.
Barrios and Vasquez (G. R. No. 45408, March 13 and June 5, 1937, it may
be laid down as a clearly established doctrine that, for the protection
of a married woman in society, in cases where she is compelled by
necessity to resort to the courts to defend her rights in actions
brought against her by her husband, she may bind the property of the
conjugal partnership administered by her husband to pay for her
attorneys’ fees for professional services rendered in her defense.

Based upon the same principles of protection of the wife, it has been held in the case of Conant vs. Burnham (133 Mass., 503), that:

“A husband is liable for legal services rendered to
his wife in successfully defending her against a complaint instituted
against her by him for being a common drunkard.”

In the case of Porter & Moir vs. Briggs (38 Iowa, 167-171), it was stated:

‘The question presented for our decision in the
case before us is this: Is the husband liable for services rendered by
an attorney-at-law in establishing the innocence of the wife upon a
charge of adultery, made by the husband himself in an action for
divorce? In our opinion he is liable for such services upon an implied
promise, which the law raises, to pay therefor as necessaries for the
wife.”

The same decision further reads:

“What then is the foundation of the right?

“We conceive it to be as follows: That inasmuch as ordinarily the
husband possesses and controls their joint earnings, and the, wife,
without pecuniary means would be utterly powerless in a litigation with
the husband, the law, from a sense of propriety and justice, implies a
promise of the husband to pay the fees of the attorneys necessary to
the protection of the interests of the wife.”

As may be seen, the foregoing case is on all fours with the case at
bar. In the former, as here, the wife was charged with adultery by the
husband. The wife was acquitted of the charge and it was held that the
husband must pay the fees of her attorney.

The defendant-appellant contends that the expenses of litigation
referred to in the above-cited decisions of the Supreme Court of Spain
were incidental to the actions instituted by the wife for the civil
purposes of her juridical relations with her husband in defense of her
rights; as for instance, in an action for support it was held that in
addition to the amount to be paid by him for the support of his wife,
he should pay another sum for expenses of litigation. “In this manner,”
says the appellant, “only in such actions may the court consider and
appreciate the necessity of the judicial expenses in defense of the
wife’s rights and the nature and extent of the obligations that, as
such, should legally affect the property of the conjugal partnership.”
To refute these arguments, it would be sufficient to call attention to
the fact that according to the above-cited decision of the Supreme
Court of Spain of November 12, 1905, “it is well settled, interpreting
article 1408 of the Civil Code, that such obligation (the payment of
the expenses of litigation) extends to all actions in which the wife has or may have had to maintain her rights,
with no other limitation than the judgment of the courts relative to
the necessity of upholding the same.” This court is of the opinion that
the defendant’s defense of herself in a criminal action for the alleged
crime of adultery brought by her husband against her, was as necessary
as a claim for support, inasmuch as the right to a good name and
reputation and the right to personal liberty are, at least, as vital
and deserving of protection as the right to existence which is, in the
last analysis, the meaning of the right to support.

The defendant-appellant, furthermore, contends “that the
plaintiffs’ defense of Socorro Nolan in this case, for which the latter
bound herself to pay their fees in question, was unnecessary in the
sense that without it there would be committed a real denial of justice
to said Socorro Nolan, because section 17 of our Code of Criminal
Procedure, that is, General Orders, No. 58, confers upon her the right
to have counsel de oficio if she were unable to employ counsel *
* *.” (Underscoring ours.) This argument is self-answering because it
presumes the condition that the defendant Socorro Nolan is unable to
employ counsel, in which case the law confers upon her the right to
have counsel de oficio. However, as she has the right to pay
for her defense with the property of her conjugal partnership, it would
have been unlawful for her to ask for counsel de oficio.
Furthermore, it would have been highly unjust to deprive her of the
right to have her own counsel, as her husband has had well known
attorneys, in the criminal action for adultery brought against her,
according to the above-stated stipulation of facts.

Another error attributed to the court a quo is, according to the defendant-appellant, that of not having declared null and void the deed of sale with pacto de retro executed by the defendant Socorro Nolan in favor of the plaintiffs.

It is an established fact that the parcel of land, which is the
subject matter of the sale, is registered in the name of said defendant
Socorro Nolan to whom the certificate of title thereof was issued as a
result of the cadastral proceedings of Murcia, Occidental Negros. The
defendantappellant contends, however, that the land in question was
acquired during his marriage to the defendant Socorro Nolan, at the
expense of the common fund. He concludes that said parcel of land
belongs to the conjugal partnership and the husband alone, not the wife
even with the permission of the husband, can alienate it in accordance
with the resolution of the Direccion General de los Registros de Espana (General
Directorate of Registries of Spain) of May 13, 1911, cited by Manresa
in his Commentaries, vol. 9, 3d edition, page 703.

It is true that according to article 1401, No. 1, of the Civil
Code, to the conjugal partnership belongs property acquired for a
valuable consideration during the marriage at the expense of the common
fund, whether the acquisition is made for the partnership or for one of
the spouses only. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that by
virtue of the principles underlying the Torrens system of registration
under which the ownership of the parcel of land in question was
registered, the provisions of article 1401, No. 1, of the Civil Code
are without legal effect when, as in this case, a purchaser in good
faith hag acquired said parcel of land registered in the registry in
the name (of the defendant Socorro Nolan. The plaintiffs, confident
that it appears from the certificate of registration that lot No. 60 of
Murcia belongs to the defendant Socorro Nolan, did not need to inquire
whether said lot had been acquired by her with money exclusively
belonging to her, or at the expense of the common fund of her conjugal
partnership with the defendant Custodio Arimas. To the plaintiffs, the
only legal truth upon which they had to rely was that the land is
registered in the name of the defendant Socorro Nolan and that her
title, under the law, is absolute and indefeasable (Maloles and Malvar vs. Director of Lands, 25 Phil., 548; Legarda and Prieto vs. Saleeby, 31 Phil., 590; Government of the Philippine Islands vs. Avila, 38 Phil., 383; and Government of the Philippine Islands vs. Abural, 39 Phil., 996).

Furthermore, according to Act No. 3922 amending article 1387 of the
Civil Code, the defendant Socorro Nolan had the right to alienate,
encumber or mortgage or otherwise dispose of the parcel of land in
question and appear in court to litigate with regard to the same,
without necessity of the permission or presence of the husband. It
necessarily follows from all the foregoing that the deed of sale with pacto de retro
executed by the defendant Socorro Nolan in favor of the plaintiffs is
perfectly valid and legal and may not be annulled upon evidence to the
effect that the money with which the parcel of land sold was acquired,
belonged to the appellant’s conjugal partnership.

Wherefore, the appealed judgment should be, as it is hereby
affirmed, with the sole modification that the defendant-appellant, as
administrator of his conjugal partnership with the defendant Socorro
Nolan, be as it is hereby ordered to pay the sum of three thousand one
hundred pesos (P3,100) to the plaintiffs within the period fixed in the
appealed judgment, with costs. So ordered.

Avancena, C J., Villa-Real, Abad Santos, Imperial, Diaz, and Laurel, JJ., concur.