G.R. No. 90215 March 29, 1996
ERNESTO ZALDARRIAGA, JESUS ZALDARRIAGA, JR. and GUADALUPE ZALDARRIAGA, petitioners, vs. COURT OF APPEALS and BASILIA ZALDARRIAGA; ANTONIA ZALDARRIAGA on her behalf and on behalf of her minor children, namely, Edgardo Romeo, Jesus, Ronaldo, William, Miguel and Rebecca all surnamed Zaldarriaga; NIDA and JOSE all surnamed ZALDARRIAGA; JOSE, JR., ALICIA, PEDRO, MELBA, NELLY and ALFREDO, all surnamed ZALDARRIAGA, respondents.

FACTS

This case involves a protracted dispute over Hacienda Escolastica, originally owned by the spouses Pedro Zaldarriaga and Margarita Iforong. Upon Margarita’s death, her one-half conjugal share was divided, giving Pedro a 6/8 interest and each of their four sons a 1/8 share. Two sons died without issue, increasing Pedro’s share. Pedro’s sons Jose and Jesus later died, survived by their respective families. In 1953, Basilia, Jose’s widow, sued Jesus’s children for partition. During the pendency of this suit, Pedro executed a deed of definite sale in 1956, conveying his entire 6/8 share to his grandchildren by Jesus (the petitioners). The trial court in the partition case (Civil Case No. 2705) subsequently declared this sale null and void, ordered an accounting of profits, and decreed the partition of the hacienda. This 1957 decision became final after appeals were dismissed for being premature, as the partition order was deemed interlocutory until the commissioners completed the physical division.

ISSUE

The core issue is whether the action for reconveyance, filed by Jose’s heirs (the respondents) in 1974 to nullify the 1956 sale from Pedro to Jesus’s heirs, is barred by prescription or laches.

RULING

The Supreme Court ruled that the action for reconveyance had indeed prescribed. The legal logic is anchored on the nature of the impugned sale and the applicable prescriptive period. The Court found the sale to be voidable, not void ab initio, as it was allegedly executed in fraud of the respondents’ future legitime as compulsory heirs of Pedro. An action based on a voidable contract prescribes in four years from the discovery of the fraud. The respondents were deemed to have discovered the fraud no later than 1957 when the trial court in the partition case explicitly declared the sale null and void. Their cause of action accrued at that moment. By waiting until 1974 to file a separate action for reconveyance, the respondents exceeded the four-year prescriptive period. The Court rejected the argument that the pendency of the partition case suspended the running of the prescriptive period, as a final and executory judgment had already been rendered therein, declaring the rights of the parties. Consequently, the petitioners’ title, acquired through the 1956 sale, had become indefeasible.