G.R. No. 24955 , September 4, 1926
JULIAN SOLLA, ET AL., plaintiffs-appellants, vs. URSULA ASCUETA, ET AL., defendants-appellants.

Ponente: VILLA-REAL, J.

FACTS

Maria Solla died in 1883, leaving a will naming several legatees (Sergio Solla, Cayetana Solla, Josefa Solla, Jacinto Serna, Rosenda Lagmay, Silvestra Sajor, and Matias Seveda) and designating Leandro Serrano as her universal heir. The will was not probated under the then-new Code of Civil Procedure. Leandro Serrano took possession of all properties, treated them as his own, and never delivered the specific legacies to the named legatees during his lifetime. Upon Leandro Serrano’s death in 1921, the legatees or their heirs (the plaintiffs) filed an action against Serrano’s widow and children (the defendants) to recover the properties bequeathed to them in Maria Solla’s will. The plaintiffs anchored their claim on a clause in Leandro Serrano’s own will which stated: “I order my heirs to comply with all the orders of my aunt Da. Maria Solla.” The trial court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, ordering the defendants to separate and deliver the properties. Both parties appealed.

ISSUE

Did the clause in Leandro Serrano’s will, ordering his heirs to comply with “all the orders” of Maria Solla, constitute a valid and effective testamentary disposition that revived the plaintiffs’ right to claim the specific legacies from Maria Solla’s will, which had otherwise prescribed or been waived?

RULING

NO. The Supreme Court REVERSED the trial court’s decision and DISMISSED the complaint.

The Court held that the clause in Leandro Serrano’s will must be interpreted in light of the surrounding circumstances and the testator’s clear intention. At the time Leandro executed his will, the legatees’ right to claim the properties from Maria Solla’s will had long prescribed due to their inaction. Leandro had possessed the properties openly and adversely for decades. If his intention was to deliver those specific legacies, he would have done so during his lifetime or would have made an unequivocal and specific devise in his will. Instead, he instituted his son Simeon as his universal heir.

The phrase “all the orders” in Leandro’s will referred only to the pious bequests (such as the saying of annual masses) stipulated in Maria Solla’s will, and not to the legacies of specific properties. To interpret it otherwise would be to allow Leandro to make a testamentary disposition of properties that were no longer part of his estate, as his ownership over them had become absolute by virtue of acquisitive prescription. The Court applied the principle of interpretation that ambiguous language in a will must yield to the testator’s manifest intention, deduced from his situation and the facts at the time of execution. Since the plaintiffs’ action to recover the legacies was already barred, the clause in Leandro’s will could not revive that extinguished right.