GR 104314; (February, 2000) (Digest)
G.R. No. 104314 February 2, 2000
HEIRS OF NEPOMUCENA PAEZ, petitioners, vs. HON. RAMON AM. TORRES, Presiding Judge, RTC, Branch 6, Cebu City and HEIRS OF EDILBERTO OSMEĂ‘A, respondents.
FACTS
Petitioners, heirs of Nepomucena Paez, filed a complaint for declaration of nullity of titles, recovery of ownership, and reconveyance against the heirs of Don Sergio Osmeña and their successors-in-interest. They alleged that two parcels of land originally covered by OCT No. 8309 in Paez’s name were fraudulently included in a 1947 petition for reconstitution of titles filed by Don Sergio Osmeña’s spouse. This led to the issuance of reconstituted titles in Osmeña’s name. The lots were later adjudicated to his sons, with Lot 5830 going to Edilberto Osmeña, the predecessor of herein private respondents. Petitioners claimed they only discovered the fraud in 1989 after finding the owner’s duplicate of OCT No. 8309 in 1987 and having it reconstituted in 1990.
Private respondents, the children-heirs of Edilberto Osmeña, filed a Motion to Dismiss the complaint against them on grounds of failure to state a cause of action, prescription, and laches. They argued they were not privy to the alleged 1947 fraud, being minors or unborn at the time, and petitioners’ claim was stale. The Regional Trial Court granted the motion, dismissing the complaint as against private respondents solely on the ground that it failed to allege a sufficient cause of action against them.
ISSUE
Whether the trial court correctly dismissed the complaint against the private respondents for failure to state a cause of action.
RULING
No. The Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s orders. The Court clarified that a motion to dismiss based on failure to state a cause of action tests the legal sufficiency of the allegations in the complaint. In such a motion, the defendant hypothetically admits the truth of the material facts pleaded. The complaint sufficiently alleged a cause of action against all defendants, including private respondents, as successors-in-interest to Don Sergio Osmeña. It narrated the fraudulent reconstitution that originated the titles and the subsequent transfers leading to the private respondents.
The trial court erred in treating the motion as one purely for failure to state a cause of action. Private respondents’ motion actually raised the affirmative defenses of prescription and laches—matters of evidence that posed factual questions requiring a full hearing, not a hypothetical admission of the complaint’s facts. By dismissing the complaint without a hearing on these factual defenses, the trial court deprived petitioners of due process. They were barred from pursuing their action without an opportunity to present evidence to counter the defenses of prescription and laches. Consequently, the case was remanded to the trial court for a proper hearing on the motion to dismiss.