Urbano Casillan, petitioner-appellee, vs. Francisca E. Vda. De Espartero, et.al., oppositor-appellants, no. L-6902, September 16, 1954 [Supreme Court decisions]

Title

Language

English

Source

XIX (10) October 31, 1954

Year

1954

Subject

Land titles—Registration and transfer

Conveyancing

Land tenure

Real property

Appellate court – Cagayan Valley

Philippines. Supreme Court

Philippines. Court of First Instance – Cagayan Valley

Casillan, Urbano

Espartero, Francisca E.

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

The petitioner, Urbano Casillan filed a petition in the Court of First Instance of Cagayan alleging that he was the owner of a Lot no. 1380, but the title was erroneously issued to Victorino Espartero who never owned the said lot. The Court of First Instance has no authority to order reconveyance of a property erroneously registered in another’s name. The landowner solution is to bring the case to the other court of justice for reconveyance, or damages if the property has passed into the hands of an innocent purchaser for value.

Fulltext

for the illegal strike, and that said strike cannot in any way affect their present status as laborers or any demands by them either pe:nding or future. With this understanding, we decline to pass upon the legality or illegality of the str ike declared on March 12, 1952, against the cement company, regarding the same as immaterial, if not moot. ln view of the foregoing, the order appealed from is hereby affirmed, with costs . Po,ms, C.J., Pablo, Bengzon, Padilla, A le:t Reyes, Bautista Angelo, Jugo, Labr<ulor, Conc11pcio11 and J.B. L. Reyes, J.J., concur. VIII Urbano Casillan, Pe!itior.er-Appellee, vs. Francisca "£'. Vda. De Espartero, et al., Oppositor-Appelants, No. L-6902, S eptember 16, 1954, RP,yes, A., J. LAND REGISTRATION; JURISDICTION OF LAND REGISTRATION COliP.T TO ORDER RECONVEYANCB · OF PROPERTY ERRONEOUSLY" REGISTERED IN ANOTHER'S NAME; REMEDY OF LANDOWNER. - The Court of Ffrst lnstance, in tht exercise of its jurisdiction as a land registration court, has no authority to order a 1·econveyance or a property erroneously registered in another's name. The remedy of the landowner in such a caflc should the time allowed for the 1·eopcning of the decree have ah·eady expired - is to bring an Ol'dinary action in the ordinary courts of justice for reconveyance, or for damages if the property has passed into the harld-; of an innocent purchaser for value. Mamt6l G. Ah·a.rado for the oppositors and appellants. Manuel G. Manzano for petitioner and appcllee. DECISION REYES, A., J.: On December 19, 1950, Urbano Casillan filed a verified petition in the Court of First Instance vf Cagayan in Cadastral Case Ncr . 26, Hecord No. 2, G.L.R . 0. No. 1390, alleging that he wl!:; the owner of Lot No. 13SO, filed a clai.m therefor in said case and paid all cadastral costs, but that by mi:stdi::e title was issued to Victorino Espartero, who never possessed or laid claim to t he said lot. Petitioner, therefor, prayed that "jn the interest of equity and unde!" Section 112 of Act 496," the oourt order the heirs of Vict.(lrino Espartero - the latter having already died - to reconvey the lot to the petitioner, or merely urder the correction of the certificate of title by substituting his name for that of Victo1·ino Espartero ns registered owner . Opposing the petition, the heirs of Victorino Espartero filed a motion to dismiss on the ground, among others, that section 112 of Act 496 did nC't authorize th2 reconveyance or substitution sought by petitioner; but the court declued the section applicable. And having found, after hearing, that !he lot belonged to petitioner and that title thereto was issued in the name of Victorino Espartero as a consequence of a clerical cnor in the preparation of the decree of registration, the court ordered the reconveyance prayed for. Prom this order, oppositors have appealed to this Court and or.e of the questions raised is that section 112 of Act 496 did not authorize the lower court to order such reconveyance. Stated another w:iy, appellants' position is that the Court of F'irst Instun..:t, in the exercise of it:; jurisdiction as a land re£"istrntion court, had no authority tCI order a reconveyance in the present cuse. The appeal thus rutses a qu~stion of jurisdiction. In view of um· decision in the case of Director of Lands vs. Hegistcr of Deeds et a l. , 49 Off. Gaz., No. 3, p. 935, appellants' contention must be upheld . In th!lt case, the court of land registration had confirmed title in the G<ivcrnm£nt of the Philippine Islands a nd the certificate of title put in the name of the Republic of the Philippines. Acting on the µeti tion, the Court of F irst Iuhncc of Rizal issued the order pra yed for on the authority of sec:tion 112 of the Land Registration Act . But upon appeal to this Conrt, the Ol'der was reversed, this Court holding that the lower court, llS a land court, had no jurisdiction to issue such ordE:r, u the section ciUd did not apply to the c&.se. Elaborating on the att1pe of said section, this Court said: "Roughly, section 112, on which the Director of Lands relics and the order is planted, authorizes, in our opinion, only alterations which do not impair rights recorded in the decree, or alterations which, if they do prejudice such rights, are consented to by all the parties concerned, or alterations to correct obvious mistakes. By the very fact of its inddeasibillty, the Court of Land Registration after one yea r loses its com· petence to revoke or modify in a substantial manner a decree against the objection of any oi the parties adversely affectf'd. Section 112 itself givt s notice lhat it 'shall r.ot be constr ued to give the court authority to open the original decree of registration,' and section 38, which sanctions the opening of a decree within one year from the date of its entry, for fraud, provides that after that period 'every decree or certificate of title h~sued in accordance with this_ section shall be incont rovertible' . "Under the guise of correcting clerical errors, the procedure here followed and the appf'aled ordt!r were virtual revision and nullification of generation-old decree and certificate of title. Such procedure and such order str ike at the very foundation Clf the Torrens System of land recording laid and consecrated by the emphatic provisions of section 38 and 112 of the Lnnd Regis· tration Act, supra. In consorrnnce with the universally-recognized principles which undt!rlie Act No. 49G, the court may not, even if it is convinced that a clerical mistake was nmde, recall a certificate of title after the lupse of neurly 30 years from the date of its issuance, against the vigoi-ous objection of its holder. As was said in a similar but much weaker case than this CGovernment vs. J udge, {;tc ., 57 Phil., 500) ; 'To hold the.t the substitution of the name of a person, by subsequent rtec!"«', for the name or another person to whom a certificate of title was issued (five years before> in pursuance of a decree, effocts only a correction of a clerical error and that the cou1t had jurisdiction to do it, requires a greater stretch of the imagination than is permissible in a ccurt of justice.' 1Syllabus.l It should be Mticed that in that case, as in this case, the later decree 'was based on the hypothesis that the decree of MRy 14, 1925, contained a clerical erl"or and that the court had jul'isdiction to correct such erl"or in the manner afor<!said'. "The sole remedy of the land owner whose property has been wrongfully or erroneously registered in another's namf' is, after one year from the date of the decree, not to set aside the decree, as was done in the instant case, but, resnecting the decref' as inccntrovertible and no longer open to t·eview. t? bring an ordinary action in the ordinary court of justice for reconveyance or, if the property has passed into the hands of an innocent purchaser for value, for damages." In line with the ruling laid down in the case cited, the order herein appealed from must be, as it is hereby, revoked, without prejudice to the filing of an ordinary actiOn in the ordinary e<iurts of justice for reeonveyancc, or for damages if the property has passed into the hands of an innocent purchaser for value. Without costs. Paras, Pnblo, Bengzon, Padilla, llt011temoyor, J ugo, 8a11tista Angelo, Co11ceycion, and J.B. L. R f11/eB. J.J., concur . IX Josefa De Jesus, Pilar De JefllU and Dolores De Jen1.•, Pla.i7ttilfs-A'Ppellants, vs. Santos Belarmino and T eodora Ochoa V e Ju.lia1t.0. !Jefflndan·ts-Appellees, G. R. N o. L-6fi65, J tnte 30, 1954, Boutirla to a parcel of land situated in Ma labon, Rizal, but the correspontling decree and certificate of title were issued, not in the name of the Philippine Government, but in that of the municipality of ltfalabon. Years a fter, lhc Di rcclflr of Lands filed in the originai land registration case n JJCtition fo r an -order to liave the error corrected I. Angelo, J. · SALES; VENDEE WITH ACTUAL OR CON STRUCTIVE Octobc!" 31, 1954 THE LAWYERS JOURNAL

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