Case Digest (G.R. No. L-4888)
Facts:
Jose Merza v. Pedro Lopez Porras, G.R. No. L-4888. May 25, 1953. The Supreme Court En Banc, Tuason, J., writing for the Court.The contest arose from the probate of two instruments, identified in the record as Exhibits A (a will) and B (purported codicil or separate testamentary instrument) executed by Pilar Montealegre, who died leaving a surviving husband and collateral relatives. Some of those relatives and the husband were named as disinheritees in Exhibit B. Jose Merza brought the petition (oppositor), and Pedro Lopez Porras was the appellee/opponent to probate.
At the Court of First Instance of Zambales the petition for probate of Exhibits A and B was denied. The trial court found defects in the attestation clause of Exhibit A and concluded that Exhibit B could not be treated as a codicil and, in any event, could not validly disinherit the surviving spouse because the disinheritance did not appear in Exhibit A.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s denial. It held that although the absence of a clause stating that the testatrix and witnesses signed each page of Exhibit A was cured by the fact that signatures appeared on every page (citing earlier decisions), the attestation clause nevertheless failed to state that the testatrix had signed in the presence of the witnesses and that this omission could not be remedied by proof aliunde. The appellate court also agreed that Exhibit B, executed a day before Exhibit A and phrased like a simple affidavit, was not a codicil and that disinheritance must appear in the will contemplated by Article 849.
The case was taken to the Supreme Court as an appeal from the Court of A...(Subscriber-Only)
Issues:
- Was the attestation clause of Exhibit A sufficiently compliant with statutory formalities to admit the will to probate?
- Was Exhibit B a valid testamentary instrument (codicil or separate will) capable of effecting disinheritance, and if so, could it disinherit the surviving spouse thou...(Subscriber-Only)
Ruling:
- (Subscriber-Only)
Ratio:
- (Subscriber-Only)
Doctrine:
- (Subscriber-Only)