GR L 55225; (September, 1982) (Digest)
G.R. No. L-55225 September 30, 1982
HEIRS OF CATALINO JARDIN, et al., plaintiffs-appellants, vs. HEIRS OF SIXTO HALLASGO, defendants-appellees.
FACTS
The heirs of Catalino and Galo Jardin filed a 1973 complaint against the heirs of Sixto Hallasgo. They sought to enforce a 1920 private partition of unregistered lands inherited from the spouses Braulio Jardin and Maura Hallasgo, who were survived by their children Catalino and Galo, and Maura’s son from a prior marriage, Sixto. The partition allocated specific parcels to each heir. The complaint alleged that after the deaths of Catalino and Galo post-war, Sixto occupied the lands allotted to them and withheld the harvests. It further claimed that in 1963, Catalino’s children permitted Sixto to use a 350-square-meter portion of their share of a poblacion lot, but Sixto fraudulently included this portion in a cadastral survey of his own lot in 1964. The plaintiffs asserted they only learned of the 1920 partition document in early 1973.
ISSUE
Whether the plaintiffs’ action to recover the lands allotted to their parents in the 1920 partition, and the specific 350-square-meter portion, is barred by prescription.
RULING
The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s dismissal regarding the recovery of the lands partitioned in 1920, but reversed it concerning the 350-square-meter portion. The 1920 partition was implemented, terminating the co-ownership over the specifically allotted parcels. Consequently, an action for partition no longer lay. For the lands where co-ownership persisted (e.g., those divided equally), the applicable action was for recovery of title (accion reivindicatoria), which prescribes. The complaint failed to allege when Sixto repudiated the co-ownership, and with the partition occurring in 1920, prescription—a ten-year period under the then-governing Code of Civil Procedure—had long set in before the 1973 suit. However, the claim for the 350-square-meter portion was governed by different principles. This was a case of a commodatum or precarium, where Sixto held the land by mere tolerance. His alleged fraudulent act of including it in his cadastral survey constituted a violation of that trust. The action for its recovery had not yet prescribed. Thus, the case was remanded for further proceedings solely on that specific claim.