Case Digest (G.R. No. 6327)
Facts:
Manzano Massaoay v. Esteban Blasi, G.R. No. 6327, September 11, 1911, the Supreme Court, Mapa, J., writing for the Court. Plaintiff-appellant Manzano Massaoay sued defendant-appellee Esteban Blasi for recovery of a parcel of land. In the trial court (first instance) judgment was rendered for the defendant; plaintiff appealed.The trial court found from the parties' oral and documentary evidence that the parcel had been acquired from the State by free grant, first by the plaintiff's father and later by the plaintiff, but that the plaintiff abandoned the land; with permission from local authority the defendant had thereafter cleared, cultivated and continuously occupied the land for many years. The trial court also noted that the plaintiff alleged the defendant had held the land since 1898 and ceased paying rent in 1901.
The plaintiff produced a composition title showing a grant from the State dated July 26, 1898, covering the subject parcel and other parcels. Three witnesses testified that in 1898 the plaintiff let the land to the defendant on a tenancy-in-shares arrangement and received half the crop for 1898–1900; the defendant allegedly failed to render the plaintiff his half after 1901. The record did not show specific extrajudicial or judicial acts by the plaintiff to recover possession or to collect crop shares between 1901 and the institution of the present suit in 1909.
The defendant relied on a written authorization issued by the gobernadorcillo of Dolores dated April 10, 1885, permitting him and others to transplant rice on certain fields said to be abandoned in several sitios; the trial court treated this as evidence of abandonment and long possession. The Supreme Court examined these facts, found the composition title in 1898 established plaintiff's grant and that there ...(Subscriber-Only)
Issues:
- Did the plaintiff abandon the land such that he lost ownership or superior right to possession?
- Did the gobernadorcillo's 1885 authorization and the defendant's long occupation confer upon the defendant ownership or a superior right vis-à-vis the plaintiff's 1898 composition title?
- Was there sufficient evidence to compute the plaintiff's share of crops owed by the defendant und...(Subscriber-Only)
Ruling:
- (Subscriber-Only)
Ratio:
- (Subscriber-Only)
Doctrine:
- (Subscriber-Only)