Magallon v. Montejo, GR L-73733 (1986)
Magallon v. Montejo, GR L-73733 (1986)
Magallon v. Montejo, GR L-73733 (1986)
Latasa, Cagas and Aranune Law & Surveying Office for petitioner.
Alberto Lumakang for private respondents.
DECISION
NARVASA, J : p
Apparently, said writ was served on both Martin Lacerna and petitioner
herein, for on December 17, 1985, the latter filed with the Trial Court a
"Motion for Intervention and to Stay Execution" alleging that the land subject
of the writ was conjugal property of herself and Martin Lacerna under a
certificate of title (OCT No. P-11568)" . . . issued way back 1978 (sic) without
legal impediments, and . . . now incontestable," as well as " . . . valid,
binding and legal unless declared otherwise in an independent proceedings,
. . ." and praying that". . . the property of herein intervenor be excluded from
the enforcement of the writ of execution." 5 Said motion was denied, as also
was a motion for reconsideration of the order of denial. Hence, the present
petition.
The facts found by the lower courts which, in view of the finality of the
latter's decisions, are binding upon this Court and can no longer be
controverted, as well as the pertinent allegations of the petition, leave no
doubt that the land in question, which rightfully pertained to the conjugal
partnership of Martin Lacerna and Eustaquia Pichan, the plaintiff's mother,
and should have been titled in the names of said spouses, was, through
fraud or mistaken, registered in the names of Martin Lacerna and petitioner
herein, Epifania Magallon. In such a situation, the property should be
regarded as impressed with an implied, or a constructive, trust for the party
rightfully entitled thereto.
The Civil Code provides that:
"If property is acquired through mistake or fraud, the person
obtaining it is, by force of law, considered a trustee of an implied trust
for the benefit of the person from whom the property comes." 6
The provision restates one of the principles upon which the general law
CD Technologies Asia, Inc. © 2023 cdasiaonline.com
of trust is founded, expressed in equity jurisprudence thus:
"A constructive trust is a creature of equity, defined supra (sec.
15) as a remedial device by which the holder of legal title is held to be
a trustee for the benefit of another who in good conscience is entitled
to the beneficial interest. So, the doctrine of constructive trust is an
instrument of equity for the maintenance of justice, good faith, and
good conscience, resting on a sound public policy requiring that the
law should not become the instrument of designing persons to be used
for the purpose of fraud. In this respect constructive trusts have been
said to arise through the application of the doctrine of equitable
estoppel or under the broad doctrine that equity regards and treats as
done what in good conscience ought to be done.
Footnotes
13. At the time the action was filed no certificate of title to the land had been
issued, and the plaintiffs (private respondents) could not have foreseen that
it would later issue in the name of Martin Lacerna and the petitioner.
14. 50 CJS 344-345. The term "homestead" in the citation appears to be used in
the general sense of referring to the house and land constituting the family
home, not in the restricted sense in which it is used in our Public Land Act as
referring to public land to which a grant from the state may be acquired by
occupation and cultivation for the prescribed period of time. Cases cited
holding wife bound by judgment against husband include Yearout v.
American Pipe & Steel Corp. App. 168 P. 2d 174; Starr v. Schoelikopf Co., 113
S.W. 2d 1227, 131 Tex. 263; Brokaw v. Collett, Com. App., 1 S.S. 2d 1090;
Hall v. Aloco Oil Co., Civ. App., 164 S.W. 2d 464; Childress v. Robinson, Civ.
App. 161, S.W. 78; Faust v. Carson, 148 P. 2d 504, 158 Kan. 479; and others.
15. Id., Footnote at p. 344.
16. As found by the Trial Court; Decision, p. 21, Rollo.
17. 100 Phil. 364.
CD Technologies Asia, Inc. © 2023 cdasiaonline.com
18. 4 SCRA 1143.
19. 20 SCRA 474.