G.R. No. L-26273 August 24, 1984
SILVERIO LUMAWAG, substituted by GABINA CASAMAYOR, plaintiff-appellant, vs. DOMINADOR SOLIS, defendant-appellee.

FACTS

Silverio Lumawag sued Dominador Solis over a parcel of land. The trial court ruled in Lumawag’s favor, ordering Solis to deliver annual harvests and vacate the land. Pending appeal, Lumawag executed the judgment by posting a bond, leading to Solis’s eviction. However, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court, dismissing Lumawag’s complaint. Consequently, the trial court issued a writ of execution to restore Solis to the land. The sheriff’s return revealed that both Lumawag and his substitute, his wife Gabina Casamayor, were already deceased at the time of restoration.
Despite the deaths, counsel for Lumawag, Leon P. Gellada, continued legal actions. He first filed an unsuccessful petition with the Supreme Court. Subsequently, the trial court proceeded with Solis’s claim for damages against the deceased Lumawag, ordering the estate to compensate Solis for harvests from the period of wrongful possession. Gellada appealed this damages order to the Supreme Court, even though his client had long been dead and no substitution of heirs had been effected.

ISSUE

Whether the appeal filed by counsel for the deceased appellant without substitution of heirs is valid, and whether the claim for damages against the deceased should be pursued in the ordinary appeal.

RULING

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. The legal logic is grounded in procedural rules concerning the death of a party and the proper venue for enforcing money claims against an estate. An appeal prosecuted in the name of a deceased person without substituting the legal representative or heirs is a jurisdictional defect; the court acquires no authority to act upon the appeal. The Court noted counsel’s non-compliance with its resolution to name the successors-in-interest, rendering the appeal anomalous.
Furthermore, the substantive claim involved—Solis’s demand for monetary compensation for harvests—constitutes a money claim against Lumawag’s estate. Under the Rules of Court, specifically the rules on settlement of estates (then Rule 87, now Rule 86), such claims must be filed in the administration proceedings of the debtor’s estate. The trial court, in a separate ordinary civil action, was not the proper forum to litigate this claim after the defendant’s death. Therefore, the dismissal was warranted both for lack of a proper party appellant and because the claim should be ventilated in the estate settlement proceedings.