GR 24169; (November, 1925)

EN BANC

G.R. No. 24169; November 2, 1925

IN THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE ESTATE OF DON DIEGO DE LA VIÑA Y DE LA ROSA, deceased, debtor-appellee,

vs.
F. M. YAPTICO & CO., LTD., creditor-appellant.

McVean and Vickers and Thomas G. Ingalls for appellant.
No appearance for appellee.

STREET, J.:

In the proceedings in the matter of the estate of Don Diego de la Vina y de la Rosa, deceased, pending in the Court of First Instance of the Province of oriental Negros, Judge Fermin Mariano, on April 27, 1920, appointed a committee on claims to appraise the property and pass upon claims pertaining to said estate. On January 8, 1921, the commissioners rendered a report, approving certain claims against the estate, among which was a claim in favor of F.M. Yaptico, in the amount of P20,000, with interest at the rate of 12 per centum per annum from May 26, 1920. On September 23, 1921, the report of the commissioners was approved by the court and the executor was ordered to pay all of the approved claims by the end of that year. For reasons not necessary to be here explained, payment could not be made within the time mentioned; and the claim of F.M. Yaptico was still unpaid on October 9, 1924, when Judge Nicolas Capistrano, who had come to preside in the Court of First Instance of Oriental Negros, entered an order declaring that the debt was not a legitimate claim against the estate but a personal obligation of the executor, for which reason he ordered that this item be disallowed. From this order F.M. Yaptico & Co., as the party prejudiced by the disallowance of the claim, appealed.

It appears that the allowance of this claim was opposed by nobody, and no appeal was taken by any person in interest from the action of the commissioners in allowing the same as a valid claim against the estate. for this reason Judge Mariano approved the same, and ordered it to be paid by the executor, to which order also no exception was taken by any person whomsoever. It was therefore beyond the power of Judge Capistrano to disallow said claim as he attempted to do in the order which is the subject of his appeal. By the failure of the parties in interest to appeal within the time allowed by section 775 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the order allowing the claim had acquired finality and was no longer subject to change by the court.

The order appealed from must therefore be reversed, and it is so ordered, without express pronouncement as to costs.lawph!1.net

Avanceña, C. J., Malcolm, Villamor, Ostrand, Johns, Romualdez, and Villa-Real, JJ., concur.

Batas Pinas