This case has been cited 4 times or more.
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2014-04-21 |
BERSAMIN, J. |
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| Aznar Brothers Realty Company (Aznar Brothers) is on appeal to review and undo the adverse decision promulgated on October 10, 2002,[1] whereby the Court of Appeals (CA) affirmed the judgment rendered on March 8, 1996 by the Regional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 10, in Cebu City[2] insofar as the RTC: (a) dismissed for lack of merit Aznar Brothers' complaint for the declaration of the nullity of the extrajudicial declaration of heirs with extrajudicial settlement of estate and deed of absolute sale, and (b) declared Lot No. 18563 as legally owned by defendants Spouses Jose and Magdalena Ybañez (Spouses Ybañez), but modified the decision of the RTC by deleting the awards of moral and exemplary damages, attorney's fees, litigation expenses and costs of suit. | |||||
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2014-04-21 |
BERSAMIN, J. |
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| We clarify that although the Spouses Ybañez's non-appeal barred them from assigning errors for purposes of this review, they are not prevented from now insisting, if only to uphold the judgment of the CA against Aznar Brothers,[26] that the property in litis was not the same as Lot No. 18563, but they would not be accorded any relief upon those reasons,[27] even if the Court should find Aznar Brother's appeal unmeritorious or utterly frivolous.[28] | |||||
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2014-04-21 |
BERSAMIN, J. |
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| In reality, the parties could still have reversed the waiver had they so wanted. Towards that end, they had three opportunities after the issuance of the pre-trial order to submit the identity of the property in litis as an issue for trial and decision. The first was for either of them to seek the modification of the pre-trial order prior to the trial in order to prevent manifest injustice,[31] but neither did so. The second was for either of them to have the trial court consider the identity of the property in litis as an issue proper for the trial, but such party must give a special reason to justify the trial court in doing so. This would have been authorized under Section 5, Rule 30 of the Rules of Court.[32] Again, neither of them seized such opportunity. And the third was for the Spouses Ybañez to adduce evidence on Lot No. 18563 being different from the land claimed by Aznar Brothers. Had they done so, Aznar Brothers could have either allowed such evidence without objection, or objected to such evidence on the ground of its not being relevant to any issue raised in the pleadings or in the pre-trial order. The RTC could then have proceeded as it deemed fit, including allowing such evidence. This procedure would have been authorized by Section 5, Rule 10 of the Rules of Court, viz: Section 5. Amendment to conform to or authorize presentation of evidence. When issues not raised by the pleadings are tried with the express or implied consent of the parties, they shall be treated in all respects as if they had been raised in the pleadings. Such amendment of the pleadings as may be necessary to cause them to conform to the evidence and to raise these issues may be made upon motion of any party at any time, even after judgment; but failure to amend does not affect the result of the trial of these issues. If evidence is objected to at the trial on the ground that it is not within the issues made by the pleadings, the court may allow the pleadings to be amended and shall do so with liberality if the presentation of the merits of the action and the ends of substantial justice will be subserved thereby. The court may grant a continuance to enable the amendment to be made. (5a) | |||||
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2014-04-21 |
BERSAMIN, J. |
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| The Court also observes in Sales v. Court of Appeals,[44] a case involving parties to a deed of donation who had agreed to register the instrument under Act No. 3344 but failed to do so, that the "better right" of a third party relates to "other titles which a party might have acquired independently of the unregistered deed such as title by prescription."[45] But the exception does not obviously apply to the Spouses Ybañez because they acquired their right from Adriano who did not hold any legal or equitable interest in Lot No. 18563 that he could validly transfer to the Spouses Ybañez. | |||||