Title
Ralla vs. Untalan
Case
G.R. No. 63253-54
Decision Date
Apr 27, 1989
A dispute over estate partition involving two brothers, Pablo and Pedro Ralla, centered on the validity of a prior partition of 63 parcels of land from their mother’s estate, excluded from their father’s probate proceedings. The Supreme Court upheld the partition, ruling it valid and binding, and excluded the properties from the father’s estate.
estate dispute
partition agreement
probate of will
A

Case Summary (G.R. No. 63253-54)

Factual Background

Rosendo Ralla’s will left his entire estate to his son, Pablo, and left nothing to his other son, Pedro. Despite that disposition, Pedro instituted Civil Case No. 2023 for the partition of the estate of their mother, Paz Escarella. During the probate hearing in Special Proceedings No. 564, Pablo moved to dismiss the probate petition, asserting that he had already become no longer interested because probate would no longer be beneficial to him. The trial court denied the motion, and the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court affirmed the denial (in G.R. No. L-26253).

At the scheduled hearing on November 3, 1966, Pablo reiterated his lack of interest. The trial court then declared Pedro and Pablo as the only heirs of Rosendo Ralla who would share equally, and converted the testate proceedings into intestacy. The brothers later compromised their dispute in the partition case (Civil Case No. 2023) and, on December 18, 1967, they executed a project of partition under which sixty-three (63) parcels of land—apparently part of the mother’s estate—were divided between them. The project was approved on December 19, 1967 by Judge Ezekiel Grageda, and the partition case was subsequently considered closed and terminated upon his order of December 29, 1967.

Events Leading to Consolidated Probate Proceedings

On February 28, 1978, Joaquin Chancoco, Pablo’s brother-in-law, filed Special Proceedings No. 1106 for the probate of the same will of Rosendo Ralla on the ground that Rosendo owed him P5,000.00. Pablo manifested that he had no objections and filed a motion to intervene as petitioner for probate. The court granted the motion ex parte despite the opposition of the heirs of Pedro. The probate petition was granted, and Teodorico Alimine was appointed special administrator, again over the objection of Pedro’s heirs. In taking possession of the estate properties, the administrator also took possession of the sixty-three parcels already covered by the earlier project of partition approved in Civil Case No. 2023.

The heirs of Pedro then moved to exclude those parcels from the estate of Rosendo Ralla. In an Omnibus Order dated August 3, 1979, Judge Romulo P. Untalan ruled, among others, that the parcels should be included in the settlement of Rosendo’s estate and that the proceedings for probate were to proceed as probate proceedings. The Supreme Court later consolidated the relevant special proceedings, and the inclusion issue remained central.

The Contested Orders of August 3, 1979 and July 16, 1981

About two years after August 3, 1979, on June 11, 1981, the private respondents filed a petition asking the court to submit anew for consideration the exclusion of the parcels subject of the project of partition in Civil Case No. 2023. In his Order dated July 16, 1981, Judge Untalan reconsidered his earlier omnibus ruling and directed that the project of partition should be respected and upheld. He therefore ordered the exclusion of the sixty-three (63) parcels from the probate proceedings and from the administration of the special administrator.

Pablo moved for reconsideration, but Judge Domingo Coronel Reyes denied the first motion and also denied a second motion for reconsideration. The denial orders were issued in relation to the special proceedings that, according to the records, had been transferred to Reyes’ sala.

The Parties’ Contentions

Pablo’s petition for certiorari attacked the July 16, 1981 order on multiple grounds. First, he contended that the extrajudicial partition of the sixty-three parcels executed after the filing of Rosendo’s probate petition and before the will was probated was void, relying on Ernesto M. Guevara v. Rosario Guevara et al., Vol. 74 Phil. Reports, in which he asserted the rule that no valid partition exists among heirs until after the will has been probated. The Supreme Court considered this argument misplaced. It explained that the partition was made in Civil Case No. 2023 involving the estate of Paz Escarella, a distinct matter from the probate proceedings in Special Proceedings No. 564 involving Rosendo’s estate. The Court emphasized that the rule invoked presupposes that the properties to be partitioned are the same properties embraced in the will, which was not the situation where two separate cases involved the estates of different persons comprising dissimilar properties.

Second and third arguments challenged the propriety of Judge Untalan’s reversal of the August 3, 1979 omnibus order after two years, alleging flip-flopping and grave abuse of discretion. Pablo argued that the omnibus order resolved multiple issues across several special proceedings and contained numerous directives. He then treated the later modification as an unlawful withdrawal of final determinations. The Supreme Court addressed this contention by distinguishing between final orders and interlocutory orders, and by examining the character of the disputed inclusion directive in the August 3, 1979 order.

Pablo maintained that the inclusion of the sixty-three parcels in the probate settlement could not be undone after that omnibus ruling, while the private respondents relied on the project of partition in Civil Case No. 2023 and on the appropriateness of respecting it.

Legal Basis and Reasoning of the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court began by assessing the nature of the August 3, 1979 directive. It quoted and treated paragraph 2 of that omnibus order as interlocutory in character because it did not decide the action with finality and left substantial proceedings still to be had. It held that the inclusion of the subject parcels as a probate incident was therefore an interlocutory matter subject to correction or amendment by the court prior to final judgment. Consequently, the Court concluded that Judge Untalan acted within jurisdiction and without grave abuse of discretion when he later reconsidered and upheld the partition project in the July 16, 1981 order.

The Court then adopted an even more decisive ground that rendered the alleged “flip-flopping” immaterial. It relied on undisputed facts showing that the parcels at issue were the subject of the project of partition signed by both Pablo and Pedro in Civil Case No. 2023; that the partition project was approved on December 19, 1967; and that Pablo and Pedro later manifested that they had already received “the ownership and possession of the respective parcels of land adjudicated to them” under the project. After their motion, Judge Grageda declared the partition case closed in an order of December 29, 1967, and no appeal was taken within the reglementary period, so the partition attained finality.

In applying controlling jurisprudence, the Court invoked the principle that where a partition had been approved and thus became a judgment of the court, distribution was completed in accordance with that partition, and the heirs received the property assigned, they were precluded from later attacking the validity of the partition or any part of it. It likewise relied on authority holding that when land included in a partition was not shown to have been included through improper means or without the petitioners’ knowledge, the partition barred further litigation on title and brought the

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