GABRIEL JUSON AND HIS WIFE MAXIMA JAVIER, ET AL., PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLANTS, VS. ANA PONCE IGNACIO AND HER HUSBAND PRUDENCIO BINUYA, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES.

Juson versus Ignacio

The Case

This is an action for recovery of ownership and possession of two parcels of land in Balanti, in the town of Baliuag, Bulacan, brought by Maxima Javier and the two sons of her deceased sister Emilia against Ana Ponce Ignacio and her husband Prudencio Binuya. The plaintiffs trace their title to a legacy made in favor of three sisters by their aunt Leoncia Javier, and they ask that they be declared owners of the land, that the defendants restore it, and that the defendants pay damages representing the fruits, which they value at 27,000 pesos, with legal interest and costs. The defendants set up a general denial and claimed that they had possessed the land as owners for more than thirty years. The case matters because it fixes, for property relations arising before the Civil Code took effect, the limits of a father's power over his child's adventitious property, and it teaches that a child's remedy for the father's unauthorized alienation is a personal action against the father's estate, not an action to recover ownership from a third person in possession.

Procedural History

The complaint was filed on August 18, 1911 in the Court of First Instance of Bulacan. In the course of the proceedings the plaintiffs, having learned of the title by composition which Ana Ponce Ignacio obtained from the Government on April 18, 1894, moved that the composition title be declared null and void. The Court of First Instance of Bulacan absolved the defendants from the complaint, with costs against the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs appealed, and the case reached the Supreme Court by that appeal. The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment appealed from, with costs against the appellants.

Facts

Leoncia Javier died on October 23, 1833, leaving a will which she had executed on November 27, 1882. In clause 5 of that will she declared that her nephew Alejo Javier, a son of her deceased brother Romualdo, had rendered her certain services, and in compensation she bequeathed to his daughters Esperanza, Maxima and Emilia two parcels of land in Balanti, in the municipality of Baliuag, Bulacan, worth 1,150 pesos. She directed that at her death the property, together with the title deeds, be delivered to Alejo Javier so that he might take possession and benefit of it. The executor of her estate, Vicente Tiongson, in the partition made on October 3, 1884, assigned the two parcels to the legatees Esperanza, Maxima and Emilia Javier, who were represented in the partition by their father Alejo Javier.

On October 6, 1884, Alejo Javier sold the two parcels with a right of repurchase to Ana Ponce Ignacio and her husband Tomas Lim-Ungco for 600 pesos, by a private document on stamped paper signed by the vendor and two witnesses. On April 26, 1886, a new deed of sale with a right of repurchase over the same parcels was executed in favor of the same purchaser Ana Ponce Ignacio and her husband Lim-Ungco for 1,150 pesos, with a term of ten years fixed for the repurchase. The vendors named in this second deed were the legatees Esperanza, Maxima and Emilia Javier, whose names were signed respectively at their request by Mateo Talag, by their own father Alejo Javier, and by their brother Primitivo Javier, in the presence of three witnesses who also signed. Maxima Javier was born on October 24, 1874, and Emilia Javier on January 4, 1877, so that when the second document was executed the former was twelve years old and the latter about ten.

Esperanza Javier died unmarried and without issue. Emilia Javier also died, leaving two minor sons, Jose and Tirso. Maxima Javier, who is still living, and these two sons of her sister Emilia, assisted by their curator, brought this action. The Court found that the act by which ownership passed to a third person was the sale made by the father on October 6, 1884, which was certified to and corrected on December 26, 1886, apparently to fix the ten-year period for repurchase and to increase the price to 1,150 pesos. On December 26, 1896, the sale became final as to the third purchaser, Ana Ponce Ignacio, and from that date the ownership of Maxima and Emilia Javier and their right to repurchase lapsed by the consolidation of that ownership in Ana Ponce Ignacio. The complaint does not ask for the annulment of the instruments of October 6, 1884 and December 26, 1886; it simply prays for the recovery of the two parcels from the possession of the third purchaser.

Issues

• Whether or not the two parcels bequeathed to Maxima and Emilia Javier were their adventitious private property, over which their father Alejo Javier had only usufruct and administration and no power to alienate.
• Whether or not the plaintiffs may bring an action to recover ownership of the property from the third person in possession without first showing that their father's estate is insufficient and without renouncing their right to inherit from him.
• Whether or not the plaintiffs' action is barred by prescription and by the lapse of time.

Applicable Provisions

Law 5, title 17, of the Fourth Partida, on the nature of adventitious property, provides:

This gain is called in Latin adventitia, because it comes from without, and not from the father's property.

This law establishes that the ownership of the child's adventitious property belongs to the child while its usufruct belongs to the father by reason of his paternal authority, which is the premise of the whole decision.

Law 24, title 13, of the Fifth Partida, as summarized in the jurisprudence which the Court adopts, provides:

Parents, though administrators of this private property while then children are under the paternal authority, are not authorized to alienate the same unless their own property be mortgaged as security for the things sold, and as guaranty for losses and damages. If the property be alienated, the children have a clear right of action against their parents' estate, through a personal action, or one to foreclose the mortgage, not that for recovery of ownership against a third party in possession, except they prove that their parents' estate is insufficient for the payment of the property sold, and even in this case they must expressly renounce their right to the inheritance. So that a judgment which, without these conditions, awards the recovery of ownership, infringes the present law.

This is the provision the Court applies directly, because it defines the only actions open to the children and the conditions without which an action for recovery of ownership cannot be sustained.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that facts occurring before the Civil Code went into force must be judged and decided in accordance with the laws then in force. Under those laws the two parcels bequeathed to Maxima and Emilia Javier formed their adventitious private property while they lived under the paternal authority of their father Alejo Javier. The ownership pertained to the daughters and only the usufruct to the father, on account of his paternal authority. The father was therefore administrator and usufructuary, not owner, and he was not authorized to alienate the property.

On the second issue, the Court held that the plaintiffs' action for recovery of ownership against the third person in possession could not prosper. The remedy of the children against the father's unauthorized alienation is a personal action against the parents' estate, or an action to foreclose the mortgage, and not an action for recovery of ownership against a third party in possession, except where they prove that the parents' estate is insufficient for the payment of the property sold, and even then only after they expressly renounce their right to the inheritance. The plaintiffs did not prove that Alejo Javier had died, so the rights of action did not arise, since the law speaks of them only after the death of the father. Neither did they prove that they had exercised their direct and principal action against the estates of their father and grandfather, after previously renouncing their right to inherit from them, before bringing this subsidiary action for recovery against whomsoever is in possession. The Court said that the action openly violates the law, and that the courts cannot sustain the plaintiffs without violating it also, when absolutely no account has been taken of the condition and requirements without which the exercise of the right of action to recover ownership is a flagrant violation of the law.

On the third issue, the Court noted that on August 18, 1911, the date of the complaint, Maxima Javier had completed her thirty-sixth year and Emilia Javier her thirty-fourth, so that more than sufficient time had elapsed since they became of age and also since the four years allowed by law for the correction of errors of age, incapacity and inexperience, with reference to the principal action that should have been brought but was not. As regards the subsidiary action, improperly brought, the defendant Ana Ponce Ignacio had been in possession for twenty-seven years, and that possession was quiet, adverse and peaceable until it was disturbed by the complaint. Even on the hypothesis that the sale made by the father in the exercise of his paternal authority, unchallenged either at the termination of that authority or on his death, did not convey a perfect title, it would always be a just title for the purpose of the prescription of ownership and real rights in the thing.

Doctrine

First, property acquired by a child from a source other than the parents is adventitious private property: the ownership belongs to the child, and only the usufruct and administration belong to the father by reason of paternal authority. Second, the father as administrator and usufructuary is not authorized to alienate the child's adventitious property unless his own property is mortgaged as security for the things sold and as guaranty for losses and damages. Third, if the father alienates the property, the child's remedy is a personal action against the parents' estate or an action to foreclose the mortgage, not an action for recovery of ownership against a third party in possession, except where the child proves that the parents' estate is insufficient for the payment of the property sold, and even then only after expressly renouncing the right to the inheritance. Fourth, these rights of action arise only after the death of the father. Fifth, a sale made by the father in the exercise of paternal authority, unchallenged at the termination of that authority or on his death, is at least a just title for the purpose of prescription of ownership and real rights in the thing.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Court of First Instance of Bulacan, which had absolved the defendants from the complaint, with costs against the plaintiffs and appellants.

Remember This

The one line to memorize is that a father administers and enjoys the usufruct of his child's adventitious property but cannot alienate it, and the child's remedy is a personal action against the father's estate, not an action to recover ownership from a third person in possession. Examiners use this case to test the distinction between ownership and usufruct over a child's private property, the subsidiary character of the action for recovery, and the rule that pre-Civil Code facts are governed by the laws then in force.