Case Digest (G.R. No. L-25847)
Facts:
Potenciano Sunga, et al. v. Benito de Guzman, et al., G.R. No. L-25847, June 19, 1979, First Division, De Castro, J., writing for the Court. Petitioners (here, the vendees and possessors of a fishpond) assailed the Court of Appeals decision affirming the Court of First Instance (CFI) of Pampanga judgment that declared respondents (three co-heirs) absolute owners of a three-ninths (3/9) pro indiviso interest in the disputed fishpond and ordered conveyance, accounting of harvests from 1947 to the present, delivery of products or value, and payment of P500 attorney’s fees.The underlying facts are largely undisputed: the property was a 5,590 sq. m. fishpond in Sebitanan, Sexmoan, Pampanga, originally registered in the name of deceased parents Juan de Guzman and Lucia Montemayor. Five of the nine legitimate heirs signed a private deed of sale (Exhibit C) conveying their respective shares to Feliciano Sibug (the predecessor of petitioners) for P700 on July 1, 1947; the deed was not notarized nor registered. The tax declaration (Exhibit B) remained in the parents’ names through October 5, 1962. Three co-heirs — Benito, Emilia and Felisa De Guzman — filed the complaint on February 5, 1962, claiming ownership of their 3/9 share and seeking recovery after demands beginning in 1955 were refused.
At trial petitioners asserted acquisitive (and extinctive) prescription by adverse possession of the whole fishpond, alleging uninterrupted possession beginning in 1948; they relied on testimony (notably of Benito) that petitioners had been in possession since that year. The trial court ruled for the plaintiffs (respondents), declaring them owners of the 3/9 share and ordering relief as above. The Court of Appeals, in a decision promulgated January 17, 1966, affirmed the CFI, finding petitioners’ possession was not sufficiently adverse, open or in the concept of an owner to ripen into title; that petitioners’ promise to pay one co-heir interrupted any prescriptive possession; and that non-joinder of co-heirs was not a fatal defect becaus...(Subscriber-Only)
Issues:
- May petitioners successfully invoke non-joinder of indispensable parties to obtain dismissal when that objection was not raised in the trial court or on appeal?
- Did petitioners acquire ownership of the entire fishpond by acquisitive prescription/adverse possession beginning in 1948?
- Had the respondents’ cause of action prescribed such that their ...(Subscriber-Only)
Ruling:
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Ratio:
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Doctrine:
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