G.R. No. 24863; August 5, 1926
LEON RAZOTE, ET AL., plaintiffs-appellants, vs. JUAN RAZOTE (alias BANDONG), NORBERTO RAPATALO, GREGORIO RAPATALO, and EUGENIA DE FRANCIA, defendant-appellees.

FACTS

The plaintiffs, Leon Razote et al., filed an action for partition of a parcel of land, claiming they inherited a four-fifths interest from their father, Juan Razote. The original complaint (September 30, 1920) named only Juan Razote and Norberto Rapatalo as defendants. Norberto’s answer alleged he purchased the land from Juan in 1913. Later, Norberto amended his answer to state that he had donated the land *propter nuptias* to his son Gregorio Rapatalo in 1915, upon Gregorio’s marriage to Eugenia de Francia. Consequently, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint (December 1923) including Gregorio and Eugenia as defendants.

The parties stipulated key facts: (1) Juan Razote sold the land to Norberto Rapatalo on June 9, 1913, and Norberto possessed it until 1915; (2) On March 26, 1915, Norberto donated the land to Gregorio, who possessed it from then until the trial; (3) The original complaint was filed in 1920, and the amended complaint adding Gregorio was filed in December 1923.

The trial court ruled in favor of the defendants, denying partition. The plaintiffs appealed.

ISSUE

Whether Gregorio Rapatalo had acquired title to the land by prescription, through tacking his possession to that of his predecessor-in-interest, Norberto Rapatalo, despite the plaintiffs having filed an action against Norberto within the ten-year prescriptive period.

RULING

YES, Gregorio Rapatalo acquired title by prescription. The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment.

The Court held that under Section 41 of the Code of Civil Procedure, a full and complete title vests after ten years of actual, open, public, continuous, and adverse possession under a claim of ownership. The stipulations and evidence established that Norberto’s possession (from June 1913 to March 1915) and Gregorio’s subsequent possession (from March 1915 to December 1923) together exceeded ten years.

The Court applied the doctrine of tacking, allowing the successive adverse possessions of Norberto and Gregorio to be combined because there was privity between them (the donation *propter nuptias*). The possession was adverse, open, and notorious. The filing of the action against Norberto in 1920 did not interrupt Gregorio’s prescriptive period because:
1. Gregorio was not a party to that original action.
2. An action against a stranger to the possession (Norberto, who had already donated the land) does not interrupt the running of the statute of limitations against the actual possessor (Gregorio).
3. There was no evidence of collusion between Norberto and Gregorio to mislead the plaintiffs.

Therefore, Gregorio acquired a prescriptive title before being impleaded in December 1923. The plaintiffs’ failure to timely sue the actual possessor barred their action for partition.