G.R. No. 112519. November 14, 1996
CATHOLIC BISHOP OF
BALANGA, represented by CRISPULO TORRICO, petitioner,
vs. THE HON. COURT OF APPEALS and AMANDO DE LEON, respondents.
The
parties do not dispute that the Roman Catholic Archbishop [sic] of Manila was the owner of a parcel
of land (Lot No. 1272, Balanga Cadastre) situated in the Barrio of Puerto
Rivas, Municipality of Balanga, Bataan, having an area of 3,368 sq. m., more or
less covered by OCT No. 14379 of the Registry of Deeds for the province of
Bataan. With respect to its rights over its properties in Bataan (inclusive of Lot No. 1272),
the said church was succeeded by the Roman Catholic Bishop of San Fernando,
Pampanga which was, likewise, succeeded by Catholic
Bishop of Balanga registered as a corporation on 15 December 1975.
Prior
thereto, or on 23 August 1936, by virtue of the authority given him by the
Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila
to donate a portion of Lot No. 1272, the then parish priest and administrator
of all the properties of the said church in the Municipality of Balanga,
Bataan, Rev. Fr. Mariano Sarili, executed an Escritura De Donacion donating an
area of 12.40 meters by 21.40 meters or 265.36 sq. m. (the subject property) of
Lot No. 1272 to Ana de los Reyes and her heirs, as a reward for her long and
satisfactory service to the church. Her acceptance of the donation, as well as
her possession of the subject property, is indicated in the deed of donation,
which deed, for unknown reasons, was refused registration by the Register of
Deeds. Six (6) years later, or in 1939, Ana de los Reyes died without issue.
Nevertheless,
before her death, she had given the subject property to her nephew who had been
living with her, the herein defendant-appellant [private respondent]. The latter immediately took
possession of the property in the concept of owner, built his house thereon
and, through the years, declared the land for taxation purposes as well as paid
the taxes due thereon.
His
possession of the subject property was never disturbed by anybody until
plaintiff-appellee [petitioner] filed the instant complaint
against him on 5 November 1985, or more than 49 years after the deed of
donation was executed, alleging, among others, that: (1) during the Japanese
occupation of the country, defendant-appellant [private respondent], without the knowledge and
prior consent of the plaintiff-appellee [petitioner], and its
predecessors-in-interest, entered and occupied the subject property, and (2)
despite requests by plaintiff-appellee [petitioner], defendant-appellant [private respondent] refused to vacate the property in question. In support of the above contention,
Crispulo Torrico, the sole witness and authorized representative of
plaintiff-appellee [petitioner] testified, among others,
that: the subject property is situated at the corner of Lot No. 1272, and
defendant-appellant [private
respondent] has, on the
strength of the deed of donation, publicly claimed ownership and occupied the
same as early as before the 2nd World War and has built his store thereon.
As
his defense, defendant-appellant [private respondent] maintains that by virtue of
the deed of donation of 23 August
1936 executed in favor of his
predecessor-in-interest, he is the lawful owner of the subject property and the
complaint states no cause of action as it was filed only to harass him.
Issue: WON the doctrine
of laches apply in the case?
Held:
Laches means the failure or neglect for
an unreasonable and unexplained length of time, to do that which, by exercising
due diligence, could or should have been done earlier; it is negligence or
omission to assert a right within a reasonable time, warranting the presumption
that the party entitled to assert it either has abandoned or declined to assert
it. It has also been defined as
such neglect or omission to assert a right taken in conjunction with the lapse
of time and other circumstances causing prejudice to an adverse party, as will
operate as a bar in equity.
The principle of laches is a creation of
equity which, as such, is applied not really to penalize neglect or sleeping
upon ones right, but rather to avoid recognizing a right when to do so would
result in a clearly inequitable situation. As
an equitable defense, laches does not concern itself with the character of the defendant’s
title, but only with whether or not by reason of the plaintiff’s long inaction
or inexcusable neglect, he should be barred from asserting this claim at all,
because to allow him to do so would be inequitable and unjust to the defendant.
The
doctrine of laches or of stale demands is based upon grounds of public policy
which requires, for the peace of society, the discouragement of stale claims
and is principally a question of the inequity or unfairness of permitting
a right or claim to be enforced or asserted.
The time-honored rule anchored on public policy is that
relief will be denied to a litigant whose claim or demand has become stale, or
who has acquiesced for an unreasonable length of time, or who has not been
vigilant or who has slept on his rights either by negligence, folly or
inattention. In other words,
public policy requires, for the peace of society, the discouragement of claims
grown stale for non-assertion; thus laches is an impediment to the assertion or
enforcement of a right which has become, under the circumstances, inequitable
or unfair to permit.
The following are the essential elements
of laches:
(1) Conduct on the part of the defendant,
or of one under whom he claims, giving rise to the situation complained of;
(2) Delay in asserting
complainant's right after he had knowledge of the defendant's conduct and after
he has an opportunity to sue;
(3) Lack of knowledge or notice on the
part of the defendant that the complainant would assert the right on which he
bases his suit; and
(4) Injury or prejudice
to the defendant in the event relief is accorded to the complainant.
Under the present circumstances, all of
the aforegoing elements are attendant in this case.
On or some time before August 23, 1936,
Rev. Fr. Mariano Sarili, the parish priest and administrator of the church
property in the Municipality of Balanga, Bataan, executed a deed of donation
over a 265-square meter church lot in favor of Ana de los Reyes and her heirs
in recognition of her long and satisfactory service to the church of Balanga,
Bataan. For some reason or another, the said deed was refused registration by
the Register of Deeds. However, she accepted the donation, indicated such
acceptance in the said deed, occupied the donated property, and exercised acts of
ownership thereupon.
In 1945, the donee, Ana de los Reyes,
died without issue. She had, however, given the subject property to her nephew
who is the private respondent in the instant case. Upon acceptance of the gift,
private respondent immediately took possession of the subject property in the
concept of owner, built his house thereon, and thenceforth paid land taxes
therefor after declaring the subject property for that purpose.
The act of petitioner-defendant that
culminated in the filing of the present action is thus clearly his occupation
since 1945 of the subject property in the concept of owner in continuation of
the occupation of the same nature regarding the same property by the donee Ana
de los Reyes starting in 1936. Undoubtedly, the first element of laches exists.
The second element also exists in this
case. The second element is three-tiered: (a) knowledge of defendant’s action;
(b) opportunity to sue defendant after obtaining such knowledge; and (c) delay
in the filing of such suit. Petitioner, in his complaint filed in the trial
court, alleged that without its consent, private respondent entered and
occupied the subject property during the Second World War. By its own
admission, therefore, petitioner was clearly aware of private respondent’s possession
of the subject property in the concept of owner. Petitioner did not also rebut
the testimony of its own authorized representative and sole witness, one
Crispulo Torrico, that the subject property was so proximately located to the
rest of petitioner’s church property as to foreclose assertion of ignorance of
private respondent’s possession of the subject property, on the part of
petitioner.
From that time during the Second World
War to 1985 when petitioner actually commenced suit against private respondent,
there was doubtlessly all the opportunity to file the appropriate action to
have the donation of the subject property to Ana de los Reyes and her heirs,
declared null and void and to demand reconveyance of said property from its
present occupants.
Notwithstanding such opportunity
available to petitioner, however, forty (40) years had to first pass by for
petitioner to finally institute the appropriate court proceedings. As such, the
second element of knowledge, opportunity to file suit, and delay in filing such
suit, is undoubtedly present in the instant controversy.
The third element of laches is likewise
present. There is nothing on the record that impresses us as clear evidence of
at least an inkling on the part of private respondent as to petitioners’
serious intention to revoke the donated property. There was neither a demand
letter nor positive testimony of any person who actually informed private
respondent of petitioners’ intentions. In other words, private respondent
manifestly had every reason to believe that, with the passing of almost half a
century since his predecessor-in-interest accepted the donated property and
without unambiguous intimation of petitioners’ non-recognition of such
donation, he was secure in his possession of the subject property in the
concept of owner.
In the light of all the above, it goes
without saying that private respondent will suffer irreparable injury under the
most unfair circumstances, were we to disregard petitioner’s inaction for more
than 40 years in asserting its rights.
In applying the doctrine of laches, we
had ruled that where a party allows the following number of years to lapse from
the emergence of his cause of action, before instituting court action to enforce
his claim, such action would be barred by the equitable defense of laches: 36
years; 12 years; 50 years; 34 years; 37 years; 32 years; 20 years; 47 years; 11 years; 25 years; 40 years; 19 years; 27 years; 7 years; 44 years; 4 years and 67 years.
In this case, petitioner filed its
complaint in court only after 49 years had lapsed since the donation in its
behalf of the subject property to private respondent’s predecessor-in-interest.
There is nary an explanation for the long delay in the filing by petitioner of
the complaint in the case at bench, and that inaction for an unreasonable and
unexplained length of time constitutes laches. As such, petitioner cannot claim
nullity of the donation as an excuse to avoid the consequences of its own
unjustified inaction and as a basis for the assertion of a right on which they
had slept for so long. Courts
cannot look with favor at parties who, by their silence, delay and inaction,
knowingly induce another to spend time, effort, and expense in cultivating the
land, paying taxes and making improvements thereon for an unreasonable period
only to spring an ambush and claim title when the possessors efforts and the
rise of land values offer an opportunity to make easy profit at their own
expense. Considerable delay in
asserting ones right before a court of justice is strongly persuasive of the
lack of merit of his claim, since it is human nature for a person to enforce
his right when same is threatened or invaded; thus, it can also be said that
petitioner is estopped by laches from questioning private respondent’s
ownership of the subject property. At
any rate, petitioners right to recover the possession of the subject property
from private respondent has, by the latters long period of possession and by petitioner’s
inaction and neglect, been converted into a stale demand. Such passivity in the
face of what might have given rise to an action in court is visited with the
loss of such right, and ignorance resulting from inexcusable negligence does
not suffice to explain such failure to file seasonably the necessary suit.
Finally, we agree with the respondent
Court of Appeals that, while petitioner is admittedly still the registered
owner of the donated property, and jurisprudence is settled as to the
imprescriptibility and indefeasibility of a Torrens Title, there is equally an
abundance of cases in the annals of our jurisprudence where we categorically
ruled that a registered landowner may lose his right to recover the possession
of his registered property by reason of laches.
WHEREFORE, the instant petition
is DISMISSED with costs against petitioner.