Adoracion E. Cruz, et.al. vs Court of Appeals and Spouses Eliseo and Virginia Mololos, GR No. 126713, July 27, 1998
Subject: Obligations and Contracts
Facts
Upon the death of Delfin, surviving spouse and
children executed a notarized Deed of Partial Partition by virtue of which each
one of them was given a share of several parcels of registered lands all
situated in Taytay, Rizal. Despite the execution of this Deed of Partial
Partition and the eventual disposal or sale of their respective shares, the
contracting parties covenanted and agreed among themselves and by these
presents do hereby bind themselves to one another that they shall share alike
and received equal shares from the proceeds of the sale of any lot or lots
allotted to and adjudicated in their individual names by virtue of this deed of
partial partition. Accordingly, the sheriff executed a Certificate of Sale over
–all the rights, claims, interests, titles, shares, and participations of
defendant spouses Nerissa Tamayo and Nelson Tamayo.
Nerissa Cruz Tamayo failed to exercise her right of
redemption within the statutory period and so the final deed of sale was
executed by the sheriff conveying the lands in question to spouses Eliseo and
Virginia Malolos. The Malolos couple
asked Nerissa Cruz Tamayo to give them the owner’s duplicate copy of the seven
(7) titles of the lands in question but she refused. The couple moved the court to compel her to
surrender said titles to the Register of Deeds of Rizal for cancellation. But
Nerissa was adamant. She did not comply
with the Order of the court and so the Malolos couple asked the court to
declare said titles as null and void. At this point, Adoracion Cruz, Thelma
Cruz, Gerry Cruz and Arnel Cruz entered the picture by filing a lower court
motion for leave to intervene and oppose [the] Maloloses’ motion. The Cruzes alleged that they were co-owners
of Nerissa Cruz Tamayo over the lands in question. Said court issued an Order
modifying the Order by directing the surrender of the owner’s duplicate copies
of the titles of the lands in question to the Register of Deeds not for
cancellation but for the annotation of the rights, interest acquired by the
Maloloses over said lands.
Issue
Whether or not the DPP was cancelled or novated by the
MOA
Ruling
No novation or cancellation.
Under the law (Art 1305, NCC), a contract is a meeting of minds between
two persons whereby one binds himself, with respect to the other, to give
something or to render some service.
In this case, petitioners insist that the MOA categorically and
unmistakably named and covenanted them as co-owners of the parcels in issue and
novated their earlier agreement, the Deed of Partial Partition. Petitioners also
claim that the MOA clearly manifested their intention to create a co-ownership.
The Court disagrees. The foregoing provision in the MOA does not novate, much
less cancel, the earlier DPP. The MOA falls short of producing a novation,
because it does not express a clear intent to dissolve the old obligation as a
consideration for the emergence of the new one. Verily, the MOA cannot be
construed as a repudiation of the earlier DPP. Both documents can exist
together and must be so interpreted as to give life to both.
Indeed, the legal effects of a contract are determined by extracting the
intention of the parties from the language they used and from their
contemporaneous and subsequent acts. This principle gains more force when third
parties are concerned. To require such persons to go beyond what is clearly
written in the document is unfair and unjust. They cannot possibly delve into
the contracting parties' minds and suspect that something is amiss, when the
language of the instrument appears clear and unequivocal.
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