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AGUEDA
BENEDICTO
DE LA RAMA,
G.
R.
No. 7476
October
9, 1913
-versus-
ESTEBAN DE LA RAMA, Defendant-Appellant. CARSON,
J :
The plaintiff in this action
charged her husband with adultery and prayed for a divorce, the
division
of the conjugal property, and alimony pendente lite. Defendant
in
his Answer denied the adultery charged against him, charged his wife
with
adultery, and alleged that his only income was a salary of P450 per
month
received as a manager of the firm "Hijos de I. de la Rama."
Judgment
was rendered against the defendant by the trial court granting a
divorce,
dissolving the conjugal partnership, and allowing plaintiff the sum of
P81,042.76 as her share of the conjugal property, and P3,200 as alimony.
From this judgment, the defendant appealed to this Court which reversed the judgment of the trial court, being of opinion that the evidence showed that both plaintiff and defendant had committed adultery and that neither was entitled to a divorce. Thereafter plaintiff appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which reversed the judgment of this Court [De la Rama vs. De la Rama, 201 U.S. 303; 11 Phil. Rep., 746]. This opinion of that court concluded as follows:
"While the right of the plaintiff to her proportion of the conjugal property, to alimony pending suit, and to other allowances claimed is the basis for our jurisdiction, the decree of the Supreme Court in dismissing plaintiff's petition renders it unnecessary to review the action of the Court of First Instance in fixing the amount that it held plaintiff was entitled to recover. We are, therefore, of the opinion that the decree of the Supreme Court dismissing the petition must be reversed and the cause remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion." After the case had been
remanded to this Court, plaintiff moved that the original judgment of
the
Court of First Instance be affirmed. The ruling of this court upon that
motion was in part as follows [7 Phil., 745]:
'The action of this court upon those four assignments of error in relating to adultery was reversed by the Supreme Court of the United States, and by the decision of that court they were definitely disposed of. The other assignments of error relate to that part of the decision of the court of First Instance which treats of the division of the conjugal property, the allowance of alimony, and the order to the court below that the case be referred to the fiscal for criminal proceedings against the defendant. And has been said, these assignments of error were not considered by this court in view of the result which it reached upon the other assignments. Nor were they discussed by the Supreme Court of the United States. 'The claim of the appellant now is, however, that the whole case was finally disposed of by the decision of the latter court, and that the only thing remaining for this court to do is to affirm the judgment of the Court of First Instance in its entirety.' "With this view, We cannot agree. The only thing considered by the Supreme Court of the United States was that part of the Decision of the Court of First Instance which related to the right of the plaintiff to a divorce. It did not pass upon the division of the conjugal property. Its order was that the case be remanded to this Court for further proceedings not inconsistent with not inconsistent with its opinion. If the contention of the plaintiff is true, it seems that the order of that Court would have been one reversing the judgment of this Court and affirming that of the Court of First Instance. By remanding the case to this Court for further proceedings not inconsistent with the opinion of the Supreme Court, it seems to have been the intention of that Court that this Court should dispose of the assignments of error not already disposed of. xxx
'Art. 1426. The net remainder of the partnership property shall be divided, share and share alike, between the husband and the wife, or their respective heirs.' "An examination of the decision of the Court of First Instance shows that no attempt was made to comply with any one of these statutory provisions. No inventory of the partnership property existing at the time of the trial, at which the liquidation was made, was ever formed. No provisions was made for paying the wife the sum of 2,000, pesos, which was neither the dowry of bienes parafernales of the wife. No provision was made for returning to the husband his capital in the partnership, which amounted to at least one-third of the assets of the firm of Hijos de I. de la Rama, which assets, according to the inventory made January 30, 1901, amounted to 1,130,568 pesos. The Court below rejected entirely the method prescribed by the Civil Code for the liquidation of this partnership and in fact liquidated, it appears from the decision, upon an entirely different basis. He determined in the first place the income which each person had received from his or her property during the partnership, finding that the wife during that time had received from her property 345 pesos as income and that the husband had received 162,430.53 pesos. He then says:
"The other assignments of error were not urged in the last brief presented by the appellant and in any event we do not think they can be sustained. "The result is that the part of the judgment of the Court of First Instance ordering the payment of 3,200 pesos Mexican currency by the defendant to the plaintiff, and the cost of the action, is affirmed. That part of it ordering the payment by defendant to the plaintiff of 81,042.76 pesos Mexican currency is set aside, and the case is remanded to the court below for the purpose of liquidating in this action to the affairs of the conjugal partnership [considering the same to have been dissolved on the 5th of July, 1902] in accordance with the rules laid down in the Civil Code, and a judgment will be entered in that court for the amount which appears from such liquidation to be due from the defendant to the plaintiff." To the judgment of this
Court overruling the motion and sending the case back to the Court of
First
Instances for a new trial, plaintiff duly saved her exception.
Upon the new trial in the Court below, judgment was rendered in favor of the plaintiff for the sum of P58,543.37, with interest at the rate of 6 per cent per annum from July 5, 1902, the date of the original judgment decreeing the divorce. From this judgment both plaintiff and defendant appealed, and the case is once again before Us upon their bills of exceptions. Plaintiff on this appeal adheres to her contentions set up in the motion to affirm the original judgment of the Court of First Instance submitted after the case had been remanded to this court Supreme Court of the United States and insists that:
"The action of this Court of January 23, 1907, holding that the motion for a new trial in the Court of First Instance on the ground that the 'conclusions which in said decision had been deduced from the facts are contradictory to what the evidence filed in the case has shown,' is a compliance with Section 497, paragraph 3, of the Code of Civil Procedure, is inconsistent with and contrary to the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States expressed in the decision of that court of said identical motion then under consideration by said court in this cause on appeal, and such ruling, therefore, is a failure to comply with the mandate of the said d United States Supreme Court. "In any event, the findings of the Court of First Instance were not so 'plainly and manifestly against the weight of evidence,' as to authorize this court to set aside said findings of fact and set aside and annul the judgment rendered by the trial court based on said findings of fact." All
of the contentions
of plaintiff-appellant in support of these assignments of error were
disposed
of in the opinion filed upon her motion in 1906 in De la Rama vs. De la
Rama [7 Phil. Rep., 745], as appears from the extracts therefrom
hereinbefore
set forth; and the Court is of opinion that it should adhere to the
position
taken at that time.
The contentions of the defendant-appellant on this appeal are, substantially, that the trial court erred in its findings of fact as to the value of the conjugal property, and in the mode of procedure adopted in liquidating the partnership assets. After a careful review of the entire record, we think that the findings of fact by the trial judge are fully sustained by the evidence, and that the method adopted by him in liquidating the assets of conjugal partnership was substantially in accord with the method prescribed in the Code and indicated in Our opinion filed with our judgment remanding the case for a new trial. [De la Rama vs. De la Rama, 7 Phil. Rep., 745]. The principal contention of defendant-appellant on this appeal is that the trial erred in failing to deduct from the amount allowed to the plaintiff-appellant the sum of P45,567, that being the amount of conjugal property which defendants claims "had accumulated and come into plaintiffs possession" at the time when the divorce was granted. We agree with the trial judge that the evidence of record fails utterly to sustain this extraordinary contention. Discussing the defendant claim in this regard the trial court said: "The testimony presented by the defendant to establish his claim that plaintiff had accumulated and was in possession of P45,567 of conjugal property is very uncertain and unsatisfactory and much of its is not pertinent and cannot be considered. Much of it relates to transactions carried on by her in the purchaser of nipa and palay some considerable period prior to July 5, 1902, and to personal and real property that came into her possession by gift or purchase [and partly on borrowed funds] some years after that period. The testimony presented on her behalf in the most material parts is in flat contradiction of that on behalf of the defendant, and it appears the more reasonable, and in conformity with her mode and manner or living. It is the opinion of this court that the evidence does not show that on July 5, 1902, the plaintiff was possessed, in the concept of owner, of property in excess of value over the P2,000 inherited from her father and her individual loans and indebtedness." And elsewhere in his opinion, the trial judge commenting upon defendant's claim, made use of the following language: "His reason for insisting that she is only entitled to recover from him less than P1,000 is that he contends that the testimony presented by him shows that his wife, since her separation from him in 1892 and up to July 5, 1902, had accumulated by her own efforts and with her own efforts and with no other capital than the P2,000 left her in 1899, the amount of P45,567 of conjugal property. "That
is, the defendant
contends that while he, as manager of a firm of over a million pesos
capital,
drawing a large salary with other perquisites, and having a one-fourth
and sometimes one-third interest as a copartner, has only succeeded in
acquiring some P50,000 of conjugal property — while his safe, a girl
only
fifteen years old at the time of their separation, has supported
herself
and with only P2,000 left her in 1899, has her sole efforts accumulated
P45,000 of conjugal property in the same period of time."
In so far as defendant-appellant's assignments of error are based on the action of the trial court in refusing to accept as true the contents of the document described as Exhibit 1, it might be sufficient to say that we are of opinion that the reasons for doing so set forth by the trial judge himself in his opinion are a sufficient reputation of defendant-appellant's contention in this regard. Exhibit 1 purports to be an inventory to the property of the firm of "Hijos de I. de la Rama" as of July 5, 1902. The bulk of the conjugal property consisted of an undivided share of this property. As pointed our by the trial judge, their inventory appears to have been prepared by or for the defendant for the purposes of this action; and in any event it was prepared after this action was originally instituted, and under conditions which justified the trial judge in believing that the defendant had every opportunity to intervene in its preparation and to use his personal influence to have the document speak favorably to his contention. Granting that it is true, as contended by the defendant, that this document was admitted in evidence without objection, it by no means follows that the trial judge was bound to accept its contents as true where other evidence or record disclosed in inaccuracies and its failure correctly to list the property in question. It was admitted for what it was worth as evidence, but in the very nature of things, it should not be held as a conclusive of the truth of its contents. We think that the trial judge is fully sustained by the evidence of record in his findings that this inventory failed to set forth the true status of the affairs of the company, and We are or opinion, and so hold, that there was no error in his findings as to the true value of the property in question. What has been said sufficiently disposes of all the errors assigned. We are of the opinion, therefore, that there is nothing in the record which would justify us in sustaining the contentions of the defendant-appellant as to error in the findings of fact of in the conclusion drawn therefrom in the opinion filed by the trial judge. The judgment entered in the Court below should be and is hereby affirmed, without costs to either party. Arellano, C.J., Torres, Mapa, Johnson and Trent, JJ., concur. |
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