G.R. No. 48936 ; June 22, 1943
ROBERTA, MARIA, FRANCISCO AND FELIX BERCEÑO, petitioners, vs. BUENAVENTURA OCAMPO and JOSE SOTELO, respondents.

FACTS

Attorney Jose Sotelo rendered services to the estate of Juan de la Viña. The universal heir of Juan de la Viña was his wife, Julia Berceno, who died before the final settlement of her husband’s estate. Julia Berceno’s heirs are her siblings, the petitioners herein. The Court of First Instance ordered the administrator of Juan de la Viña’s estate to pay Sotelo’s fees. The administrators of both estates appealed this order. After the appeal was perfected, the Court of First Instance ordered the estate of Julia Berceno (which had by then received all property from Juan de la Viña’s estate by court authority) to file a bond or deposit P4,200 with the Clerk of Court to answer for the outcome of the appeal. The estate deposited P4,200. The Court of Appeals later affirmed the order for fees but reduced the amount to P4,200, from which a sum already received by Sotelo (P1,464) was to be deducted. The petitioners have since received their shares from the settled estate of Julia Berceno. The respondent court later ordered the petitioners to pay Sotelo the unpaid balance of P2,736. The petitioners contest this, arguing that Sotelo became the owner of the funds upon deposit and should bear the loss of the deposited amount (which was lost in the government treasury due to the emergency of the time), citing a prior Supreme Court resolution involving a deposit for costs.

ISSUE

Whether the loss of the sum deposited with the Clerk of Court to answer for attorney’s fees during the pendency of an appeal exempts the distributees of an estate from paying those fees to the attorney who rendered services to the estate.

RULING

No. The order of the respondent court compelling the distributees to pay the fees is affirmed. The deposit was not a payment to the attorney but a guarantee or security for whatever amount of fees would be adjudicated pending appeal. It partook of the nature of a bond under the Rules of Court, required to allow distribution of the estate before payment of obligations. The character of the estate’s liability was not altered by choosing a deposit over a bond; the deposit was for the convenience of the distributees to receive their shares pending appeal. The attorney, as a creditor of the estate, held a statutory lien against the estate’s assets. This lien was not extinguished by the deposit. The loss of the deposit through force majeure does not discharge the underlying debt secured by the lien. Furthermore, equitable considerations favor the attorney who rendered services for the benefit of the estate from which the petitioners inherited. The petitioners’ argument that a separate proceeding was needed to declare heir liability after the estate’s closure is rejected, as the liability of the estate (and consequently its distributees) became final upon the appellate court’s affirmance of the fee order. The case distinguished from those involving a deposit for costs, where the deposit constitutes an advance payment of a fixed sum and its loss discharges the depositor.