Goitia vs. Campos Rueda

Case Title:
Date: November 2, 1916
ELOISA GOITIA Y DE LA CAMARA,

plaintiff-appellant, vs. JOSE CAMPOS
RUEDA, defendant-appellee.
G.R. No.: G.R. No. 11263

Ponente: TRENT, J.; SECOND DIVISION
Nature of Action:
Topic: Grounds for legal sep; Sexual
Perversion
Facts: This is an action by the wife against her husband for support outside of the
conjugal domicile. From a judgment sustaining the defendants demurrer upon the ground that the
facts alleged in the complaint do not state a cause of action, followed by an order dismissing the case
after the plaintiff declined to amend, the latter appealed.
It was urged in the first instance, and the court so held, that the defendants' cannot be compelled to
support the plaintiff, except in his own house, unless it be by virtue of a judicial decree granting her a
divorce or separation from the defendant.
- The parties were legally married in the city of Manila on January 7, 1915, and immediately
thereafter established their residence at 115 Calle San Marcelino, where they lived together for
about a month, when the plaintiff returned to the home of her parents. he pertinent allegations of
the complaint are as follows:
"That the defendant, one month after he had contracted marriage with the plaintiff,
demanded of her that she perform unchaste and lascivious acts on his genital
organs; that the plaintiff spurned the obscene demands of the defendant and
refused to perform any act other than legal and valid cohabitation; that the
defendant, since that date had continually on other successive dates, made
similar lewd and indecorous demands on his wife, the plaintiff, who always spurned
them, which just refusals of the plaintiff exasperated the defendant and induced
him to maltreat her by word and deed and inflict injuries upon her lips, her
face and different parts of her body; and that, as the plaintiff was unable by any means
to induce the defendant to desist from his repugnant desires and cease from maltreating
her, she was obliged to leave the conjugal abode and take refuge in the home of
her parents."
Issue: W/N Eloisa Goitia may compel her husband to give her support, even outside of
the conjugal home
Ruling: Yes.
Ratio:
ART. (149) 49. The person obliged to give support may, at his option, satisfy it, either by paying the
pension that may be fixed or by receiving and maintaining in his own home the person having the
right to the same."
Article 152 of the Civil Code gives the instances when the obligation to give support shall cease. The
failure of the wife to live with her husband is not one of them.
The above quoted provision of the Law of Civil Marriage and the Civil Code fix the duties and
obligations of the spouses. The spouses must be faithful to assist, and support each other. the husband
must live with and protect his wife. The wife must obey and live with her husband and follow him
when he changes his domicile or residence, except when he removes to a foreign country. But the
husband who is obliged to support his wife may, at his option, do so by paying her a fixed pension or
by receiving and maintaining her in his own home.
The mere act of marriage creates an obligation on the part of the husband to support
his wife. This obligation is founded not so much on the express or implied terms of the contract of
marriage as on the natural and legal duty of the husband; an obligation, the enforcement of which is of
such vital concern to the state itself that the law will not permit him to terminate it by his own
wrongful acts in driving his wife to seek protection in the parental home. A judgment for separate
maintenance is not due and payable either as damages or as a penalty; nor is it a debt in the strict legal
sense of that term, but rather a judgment calling for the performance of a duty made specific by the
mandate of the sovereign. This is done from necessity and with a view to preserve the public peace and
the purity of the wife; as where the husband makes so base demands upon his wife and indulges in the
habit of assaulting her. the pro tanto separation resulting from a decree for separate support is not an
impeachment of that public policy by which marriage is regarded as so sacred and inviolable in its
nature; it is merely a stronger policy overruling a weaker one; and except in so far only as such
separation is tolerated as a means of preserving the public peace and morals may be considered, it
does not in any respect whatever impair the marriage contract or for any purpose place the wife in the
situation of a feme sole.
Relevant Dissent-Concurring Opinion/Notes:
Note:
The wife, who is forced to leave the conjugal abode by her husband without fault on her part, may
maintain an action against the husband for separate maintenance when he has no other remedy,
notwithstanding the provisions of article 149 of the Civil Code giving the person who is obliged to
furnish support the option to satisfy it either by paying a fixed pension or by receiving and
maintaining in his own home the one having the right to the same.
MORELAND, J., concurring:
I based my vote in this case upon the ground that a husband cannot, by his own wrongful acts,
relieve himself from the duty to support his wife imposed by law; and where a husband, by
wrongful, illegal, and unbearable conduct, drives his wife from the domicile fixed by him, he cannot
take advantage of her departure to abrogate the law applicable to the marital relation and
repudiate his duties thereunder. In law and for all purposes within its purview, the wife still remains
an inmate of the conjugal domicile; for I regard it as a principle of law universally recognized that
where a person by his wrongful and illegal acts creates a condition which under ordinary
circumstances would produce the loss of rights or status pertaining to another, the law will,
whenever necessary to protect fully the rights or status of the person affected by such acts, regard
the condition by such acts created as not existing and will recur to and act upon the original
situation of the parties to determine their relative rights or the status of the person adversely
affected.

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Case Title:

Date: November 2, 1916

ELOISA GOITIA Y DE LA CAMARA,

G.R. No.: G.R. No. 11263

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