GR L 11060; (May, 1958) (Digest)
G.R. No. L-11060; May 23, 1958
A. U. VALENCIA and CO., plaintiff-appellant, vs. HERMINIA C. LAYUG and MARCIAL LAYUG, defendants-appellees.
FACTS
On January 4, 1956, plaintiff A. U. Valencia and Co., a real estate broker, filed an action in the Municipal Court of Manila against defendants Herminia C. Layug and her husband, Marcial Layug, to recover the sum of P1,510.00 as commission for the sale of Herminia’s property to Lope Yutuc, pursuant to an exclusive agency contract between the plaintiff and Herminia. The Municipal Court rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiff. The defendants appealed to the Court of First Instance of Manila, where they filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on the ground that it failed to state a cause of action. Their theory was that the property sold was conjugal, and only the husband, Marcial Layug, as administrator, had the authority to enter into the agency contract; therefore, the contract executed by Herminia was void. The trial court, accepting this defense theory and holding the agency contract null and void, dismissed the complaint by order dated June 23, 1956. The plaintiff appealed this order directly to the Supreme Court.
ISSUE
Whether the trial court correctly dismissed the complaint for failure to state a cause of action based on the defendants’ theory that the agency contract was void because the property was conjugal and only the husband could authorize its sale.
RULING
No. The Supreme Court set aside the appealed order and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings. The Court held that the complaint sufficiently stated a cause of action. Nowhere in the complaint did it appear that the property was conjugal; on the contrary, the agency contract referred to the property as belonging to Herminia, and the deed of absolute sale also listed Herminia as the vendor, with her husband signing only to give marital consent. The dismissal was based solely on a motion to dismiss, without any trial or presentation of evidence. Whether the property was indeed conjugal is a matter of defense that the defendants must prove in a regular trial. The test for the sufficiency of the facts alleged in the complaint is whether, admitting such facts as true, the court could render a valid judgment in accordance with the prayer of the complaint. Here, the complaint’s allegations were sufficient to constitute a cause of action.