GR 123823; (February, 1997) (Digest)
G.R. No. 123823 February 17, 1997
MODESTO G. ESPAÑO, SR., petitioner, vs. COURT OF APPEALS, HON. NICOLAS SIAN MONTEBLANCO and CARIDAD JINON, respondents.
FACTS
Private respondent Caridad Jinon filed a complaint for annulment of title, recovery of possession, ownership, reconveyance, and damages against petitioner Modesto G. Españo, Sr. before the Regional Trial Court of Iloilo. Jinon claims ownership over two parcels of land, registered under Españo’s name, by way of succession from her grandparents, evidenced by a Partition Agreement dated 1927. In his answer, Españo raised the affirmative defenses of laches and prescription, arguing that Jinon’s action was filed well beyond the ten-year prescriptive period for reconveyance based on implied trust, as his titles were issued in 1968 and 1973.
Españo moved to dismiss the case, submitting the issue of laches and prescription based solely on the allegations in the complaint without presenting evidence. The trial court denied the motion, ruling that these defenses were evidentiary in nature and must be proven during a trial on the merits. Españo’s petition for certiorari to the Court of Appeals was dismissed, prompting this petition to the Supreme Court.
ISSUE
Whether the trial court committed grave abuse of discretion in denying Españo’s motion to dismiss based on laches and prescription without conducting a preliminary hearing.
RULING
The Supreme Court denied the petition. The Court held that laches is an equitable doctrine determined by the particular circumstances of each case, not by mere lapse of time. Españo’s claim that laches barred the suit involved factual determinations, such as the accrual of the cause of action from the 1927 Partition Agreement, which the Supreme Court, not being a trier of facts, could not resolve. These matters are best ventilated in a full trial.
Regarding prescription, the Court ruled it may be pleaded in a motion to dismiss only if the complaint shows on its face that the action had prescribed. Here, Españo failed to attach copies of his titles or allege their issuance dates in his answer, leaving the trial court with no basis to compute the prescriptive period. The factual finding of both lower courts on this point stands. An order denying a motion to dismiss is interlocutory and not appealable; the proper remedy is to proceed to trial and raise the issue on appeal from a final adverse judgment. No grave abuse of discretion by the trial court was found.