G.R. No. 27296, October 8, 1927
INTESTATE ESTATE OF JOSE B. BANZON, represented by TRINIDAD GONZALEZ, judicial administratrix, plaintiff-appellant, vs. MARIANO B. BANZON, ET AL., defendants-appellees.

FACTS

Trinidad Gonzales, as judicial administratrix of the intestate estate of Jose B. Banzon, filed a complaint against Mariano B. Banzon and others. She alleged that the defendants, without her knowledge or consent, opened two irrigation canals across a tract of land belonging to the estate to draw water from the Talisay River to irrigate their own lands, causing damages. She sought to have the canals closed and refilled and to be indemnified.

The defendants denied the allegations and asserted that the first canal was built in 1905 as part of a communal irrigation system from which Jose B. Banzon himself benefited during his lifetime and his heirs after his death. They claimed the second canal was built in 1918 with Jose B. Banzon’s knowledge and consent. They argued there was an existing easement of aqueduct.

The land in question, Lot No. 362, was registered under the Torrens system in the name of Jose B. Banzon’s heirs in 1922. The original certificate of title did not mention any easement or irrigation canal. The cadastral survey plan completed in 1917 also did not show the canals.

The trial court absolved most defendants and only ordered Mariano B. Banzon to pay a small indemnity for the second canal. The administratrix appealed.

ISSUE

Did the registration of the servient estate (Lot No. 362) under the Torrens system, without the easements being noted on the certificate of title, extinguish the defendants’ claimed easement of aqueduct?

RULING

YES. The Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s judgment.

The Court held that under Section 39 of Act No. 496 (the Land Registration Act), as amended, the registration of a servient estate under the Torrens system extinguishes all easements not noted on the certificate of title. The law makes no distinction between legal and voluntary easements; the extinction applies to all.

Since the certificate of title for Lot No. 362 made no mention of the irrigation canals or any easement in favor of the defendants, and the defendants did not oppose the registration or assert their claim during the cadastral proceedings despite being aware of them, the claimed easements were extinguished by the registration. The defendants could no longer assert a right to maintain the canals across the registered land.

The Court distinguished the case from situations involving easements *appurtenant* to the *dominant* estate (the defendants’ land), which under the latter part of Section 39 might survive failure to register. However, the registration of the *servient* estate (plaintiff’s land) itself operates to cut off such unregistered appurtenant rights. Here, the servient estate (Lot No. 362) was registered.

Therefore, the defendants had no right to maintain the canals. The Court ordered the defendants to refill the canals at their own expense and to pay damages to the plaintiff estate, with costs.

NOTE: The digest includes a summary of the dissenting opinion, which argued that the defendants’ right to use the ditches, constructed with the owner’s consent, was a personal right or an easement in favor of their own (dominant) lands and was not extinguished by the Torrens title of the servient estate, as they were not claiming title to the land itself. The majority opinion, as detailed above, rejected this view.