G.R. No. L-10228; February 28, 1962
CORNELIO ALZONA, ET AL., plaintiffs-appellants, vs. GREGORIA CAPUNITAN and MANUEL REYES, defendants-appellees.

FACTS

The case involves two parcels of friar land originally possessed by spouses Perfecto Alomia and Cepriana Almendras. Their son, Arcadio Alomia, purchased Lot 2968 and initiated installment payments for Lot 2524. Upon Arcadio’s death in 1924, his widow, Ildefonsa Almeda, falsely represented herself to the Bureau of Lands as his sole heir, securing the transfer and title to Lot 2524 in her name alone. The plaintiffs, who are Arcadio’s nephews and nieces, were thus deprived of their rightful inheritance to an undivided one-half share of the conjugal property. Ildefonsa later sold the lots to the defendants, her niece Gregoria Capunitan and husband Manuel Reyes. The plaintiffs filed two prior recovery actions in 1929 and 1931, both of which were dismissed due to procedural inaction and failure to prosecute, not because of any settlement or recognition of the plaintiffs’ title by the defendants.

ISSUE

Whether the plaintiffs’ action for reconveyance of their hereditary share in the registered lands is barred by prescription.

RULING

Yes, the action has prescribed. The Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s dismissal. The legal logic proceeds from the nature of the plaintiffs’ claim and the applicable prescriptive period. While the Court of Appeals had correctly characterized Ildefonsa’s holding of the plaintiffs’ share as a constructive trust arising from fraud, an action for reconveyance based on such an implied trust prescribes in ten years. The cause of action accrued in 1928 when the defendants purchased and took possession of the properties from Ildefonsa, an act constituting a clear repudiation of any trust. The ten-year prescriptive period began to run from that date. The filing of the earlier cases in 1929 and 1931 did not toll prescription because both were definitively dismissed for failure to prosecute—the first in 1930 and the second in 1936—without any adjudication on the merits. After the 1936 dismissal, the plaintiffs took no action until filing the present case in 1950, well beyond the ten-year limit. The Court rejected the argument that ownership of registered land is imprescriptible, clarifying that this principle protects a registered owner against adverse claims but does not apply to an unregistered beneficiary of a trust seeking reconveyance from the registered owner. The defendants, as third-party purchasers who had repudiated the trust and asserted ownership openly for decades, acquired title by prescription.