[ G.R. No. 112483. January 17, 2000]

ELOY IMPERIAL vs. CA, et al.

THIRD DIVISION

Gentlemen:

Quoted hereunder, for your information, is a resolution of this Court dated JAN 17, 2000.

G.R. No. 112483 (Eloy Imperial vs. Court of Appeals, Regional Trial Court of Legaspi City, Cesar Villalon, et al.)

This refers to the Motion for Reconsideration filed by private respondents from this Court's Decision dated October 8, 1999 which held that private respondents' action for reduction of inofficious donation has prescribed.

The Decision held that the prescriptive period for the filing of actions for the reduction of inofficious donations is ten years from the date of death of the donor, pursuant to Article 1144 of the Civil Code1 Under Article 1144 of the Civil Code, actions upon an obligation created by law must be brought within ten years from the time the right of action accrues. The obligation to have donations inter vivos reduced to the extent that they impair the legitime of other heirs is provided under Article 771 of the Civil Code., and dismissed private respondents' action for having been filed 24 years from the date of death of donor. In their motion, private respondents cite Mateo vs. Lagua, 29 SCRA 864, in seeking reconsideration of this ten-year period. In Mateo, this Court set aside the decision of the Court of Appeals to reduce a donation for inofficiousness, such finding of inofficiousness not having been substantiated since the value of the donated property and the net hereditary estate was not established. In the same decision, we declared that the setting aside was "without prejudice to the parties' litigating the issue of inofficiousness in a proper proceeding". Private respondents make capital of the fact that in Mateo case, 10 years and 11 months have elapsed since the date of death of the donor and the rendition of the Supreme Court decision; thus, the prescriptive period for the filing of such action could not be ten years.

This argument is misplaced, because it deems the period for prescription to have been interrupted by the rendition of the Supreme Court decision. The prescription of an action is interrupted by the filing of such action in court.2 Civil Code, Art. 1155. In the instant case, 24 years elapsed since the death of the donor, Leoncio Imperial, and the filing of the complaint in the Regional Trial Court by Cesar and Teresa Villalon. Such was not the case in Mateo, for the complaint therein for annulment of donation was filed by the donor himself, shortly before his death. It was by virtue of the donor's subsequent death, while the action for annulment was pending, that the issue of inofficiousness of the contested donation became ripe foe adjudication. Thus, the prescription of an action for reduction of inofficious donation was not an issue, to begin with, in Mateo.

An action for reduction of inofficious donation is essentially a claim for legitime and does not translate to a claim of title over the property subject of the contested donation. We cannot give credence to private respondents' submission that based on Article 1073 of the Civil Code3 "The donee's share of the estate shall be reduced by an amount equal to that already received by him; and his co-heirs shall receive an equivalent, as much as possible, in property of the same nature, class and quality.", the reduction of the inofficious portion of a donation necessarily requires the restitution of a part of the property donated equivalent to the impaired legitime, and that such restitution is what characterizes the instant case as a real action over an immovable, that prescribes in 30 years. That the property donated in the instant case is an immovable, and that it apparently constitutes the only property of the estate of Leoncio Imperial, are mere incidents of the case. Estates almost always consist of both movables and immovables, and to make the prescriptive period of an action for reduction of donation dependent upon the nature of the property comprising the estate would be to ignore the basic tenet that prescription of actions is determined by the cause of action of the plaintiff. In the case of an action for reduction of an inofficious donation, the cause of action, irrespective of the nature of the property of the estate, is impairment of legitime, which is a personal action.

The obligation to have collatable donations reduced to the extent that they impair upon the legitime of other heirs being explicitly provided for under Article 771 of the Civil Code, and in the absence of a prescriptive period governing the above obligation, the ten-year period under Article 1144, on actions upon an obligation created by law, shall govern.

The action having clearly prescribed, private respondents' argument on laches is likewise defeated, because it is predicated upon the assumption that the prescriptive period has not lapsed.

WHEREFORE, for lack of merit, the motion for reconsideration is hereby DENIED WITH FINALITY.

SO ORDERED.

Very truly yours,

(Sgd.) JULIETA Y. CARREON

Clerk of Court


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