Case Digest (G.R. No. 14084)
Facts:
Gregorio Joaquin y Tuason et al. v. Maximo Joaquin et al., G.R. No. 14084, February 16, 1920, the Supreme Court En Banc, Avancena, J., writing for the Court.The dispute arose from the successive marriages and business arrangements of Maximo Joaquin. In January 1870 he married Juana Bernardo; that marriage produced five children (Elias, Sixto, Dorotea, Maria and Simeona) and, by the time Juana died on November 1, 1882, had accumulated conjugal assets (bienes gananciales) totalling P1,800. Juana’s brother, Simeon Bernardo, demanded half of that sum for Juana’s children, but instead an agreement was made whereby Maximo and those children formed a partnership using the P1,800 as capital and sharing earnings equally; Maximo managed the enterprise.
By July 7, 1885, when Maximo contracted his second marriage to Francisca Tuason, the partnership capital had grown to P3,677. Francisca brought no property to that marriage. During the second marriage the assets traced to that capital expanded to P163,250 by the time Francisca died on February 26, 1909. Maximo and Francisca produced four children (Gregorio, Fidela, Domingo, Feliza), who are the plaintiffs/appellants in this action.
Maximo submitted a liquidation allocating the P163,250 among himself, his children by the first marriage, and his children by the second marriage based on the premise that the P3,677 he brought into the second marriage was capital of the preexisting partnership with his first-marriage children and that subsequent profits should be apportioned accordingly. The trial court accepted this liquidation and ordered distribution consistent therewith. The plaintiffs (children of the second marriage) appealed to the Supreme Court contesting the liquidation’s legal basis and contending, inter alia, that (a) the partnership was universal and should include later acquisitions, (b) the children of the first marriage were underage and could not validly enter such a contract, and (c) Simeon Bernardo lacked legal authority to repres...(Subscriber-Only)
Issues:
- Was the liquidation valid in treating P3,677 as the capital of a preexisting partnership between Maximo and his children of the first marriage and in allocating subsequent profits accordingly?
- Was the alleged partnership a limited partnership (confined to the P1,800 capital) rather than a universal partnership covering all later-acquired property?
- Could the minor children validly enter into the partnership through the representation of Simeon Bernardo, and if not, did subsequent ratification cure any defect?
- Did Maximo validly renounce any usufruct rights arising from the childr...(Subscriber-Only)
Ruling:
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Ratio:
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Doctrine:
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