Facts:
Maria San Miguel Vda. de Espiritu (petitioner) filed a complaint before the
Court of First Instance of Cavite on
October 20, 1964 against
Anastacia Topacio, Josefa Jardinian(o), and the Register of Deeds for the Province of Cavite (respondents, insofar as the private respondents were defendants). The complaint alleged that sometime in
1948 the defendants had verbally sold to petitioner two parcels of land for
P3,000.00, that petitioner was delivered the lands and the corresponding transfer certificates of title, and that no deed of sale was executed because defendants promised to execute one after the titles then in the name of their predecessor-in-interest were transferred to their names. Petitioner asserted that despite repeated demands, defendants failed and refused, without justifiable cause, to execute the promised public deed of conveyance. Defendants denied that the transaction was a sale and instead alleged it was
an antichresis contract, where petitioner had loaned
P1,500.00 and received the lands and titles as security, with the right to collect the income pending repayment. As affirmative defenses, defendants pleaded unenforceability under the
statute of frauds and
prescription, contending the cause of action had accrued in 1948. Because petitioner filed no opposition, on
July 31, 1967 the trial court dismissed the complaint, granting the motion to dismiss on the reasons stated therein and ordering dismissal with costs. Petitioner later sought reconsideration through a motion dated
November 9, 1968; she claimed the dismissal order of July 31, 1967 had never been served on her or her counsel and thus had not become final and executory when she filed her motion. In an order dated
April 1, 1969, the trial judge recounted that the hearing on the motion to dismiss had been reset, that defendants’ motion to dismiss was filed and copied to petitioner’s lawyers, that petitioner’s lawyers did not appear at the scheduled hearings, and that the dismissal order of
July 31, 1967 was sent by ordinary mail to petitioner’s counsel. The court also stated that almost four months after
January 23, 1968, when it granted defendants’ motion for return of the transfer certificates of title by registered mail to petitioner’s counsel, petitioner filed her motion for reconsideration only on
May 6, 1968, allegedly out of time, and that her notice of appeal dated
October 30, 1968 and record on appeal filed
November 12, 1968 were likewise filed beyond the reglementary period. Hence, the trial court denied reconsideration and the appeal. Petitioner then instituted the present petition for
certiorari and mandamus, seeking to annul the dismissal orders on jurisdictional grounds and to compel action favorable to her. The Supreme Court ultimately denied the petition.
Issues:
Whether the
Court of First Instance of Cavite erred in dismissing petitioner’s complaint for
prescription, and in denying petitioner’s
motion for reconsideration and her
appeal from the dismissal orders, in light of petitioner’s assertions regarding
service of the dismissal order and the alleged
non-violation of the constitutional and procedural requirements on judicial decisions.
Ruling:
Ratio:
Doctrine: