CASE DIGEST: Cutanda v. Heirs of Cutanda

DOMINICA CUTANDA, SEBASTIAN CUTANDA, JUANARIO CUTANDA, SOTERO CUTANDA, CRISPIN CUTANDA, FLORENCIO CUTANDA, TRINIDAD CUTANDA, NICANOR CUTANDA, GABINA CUTANDA FLORES, and CLAUDIO CUTANDA, petitioners, vs. HEIRS OF ROBERTO CUTANDA, namely, GERVACIO CUTANDA, SOPRONIO C. CUTANDA, JORGE CUTANDA, and CRISPIN G. AVENIDO and COURT OF APPEALS, respondents

G.R. No. 109215          |          July 11, 2000

FACTS:

On August 4, 1988, private respondents brought an action for recovery of possession, accounting and damages against petitioners. They alleged that in the 1900’s, their grandfather, Roberto Cutanda, owned two parcels of land in Bohol. Upon Roberto Cutanda’s death, these lands were inherited by his children, namely: Doque, Diego, Pedro, Andres, and Anastacia. Except for Doque who stayed in Bohol and administered the lands, all of Roberto Cutanda’s children established residence in Leyte. In 1987, they returned to Bohol to personally work the inherited lands. Their plan, however, was frustrated as petitioners, who were occupying the lands, refused to leave. Private respondent thus prayed that each be declared owner of 1/5 of the subject real properties and that petitioners be ordered to return to them said properties.

Contending that private respondents had no cause of action, petitioners denied that private respondents’ predecessor-in-interest, Roberto Cutanda, was the original owner of the lands in question. Instead, they claimed that the owner was their uncle and predecessor-in-interest, Anastacio Cutanda. It was alleged that Anastacio Cutanda died without children and that the real properties in question were inherited by his brothers and sisters whose children are the present petitioners. Claiming a better right to possess the subject properties, petitioners alleged that while they occupied the shares which their parents inherited from Anastacio Cutanda, some of them also worked as tenants cultivating the lands of their co-petitioners.

On September 28, 1989, the trial court rendered its decision declaring petitioners to have acquired the ownership of the subject properties through prescription and dismissing private respondents’ complaint. The court ordered private respondents to vacate the properties and remove whatever improvements they may have made, to restore petitioners in possession of the lands, and to cease from laying further adverse claims over the lands.

ISSUE:

Whether petitioners presented sufficient evidence to prove their ownership of the lands in question.

RULING:

Private respondents’ action was an accion publiciana to recover the right of possession and to be declared owners of the subject lands. Their complaint squarely put in issue the ownership of the lands in dispute. It may thus be properly treated as an accion reivindicatoria. As found by the Court of Appeals and by the trial court, however, petitioners’ predecessor-in-interest, Anastacio Cutanda, acquired possession of said lands in 1933. On the other hand, private respondents did not assert ownership over the lands until 1988—55 years later, when they filed their present complaint for recovery of possession. It is settled that the remedies of accion publiciana or accion reivindicatoria must be availed of within 10 years from dispossession. Under Art. 555(4) of the Civil Code, the real right of possession is lost after the lapse of 10 years.

Hence, insofar as petitioners are concerned, private respondents’ cause of action was barred, not by laches, but by extinctive prescription, regardless of whether their complaint is considered as an accion publiciana or an accion reivindicatoria.

As already stated, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s ruling that petitioners had acquired the lands by prescription on the ground that there was no sufficient evidence to prove that petitioners had been in open, continuous and adverse possession of the lands. There is, however, nothing in the evidence to support this finding of the appellate court. To the contrary, the evidence in the record, both documentary and testimonial, shows: (1) that their common ancestor was the late Doque Cutanda, son of Eustaquio Cutanda and Rufina Atup; (2) that Doque Cutanda had several children; (3) that, in his lifetime, Doque Cutanda acquired a parcel of agricultural land consisting of 31.0929 hectares that was named under his eldest child, Anastacio; (4) that Anastacio, who had no children, remained in possession of said land from 1933 until 1968 when he executed a deed of extrajudicial settlement of estate which adjudicated and partitioned said parcel of land among his brothers and sisters; (5) that after 1968, Anastacio’s brothers and sisters worked on the land and subsequently, their children and successors, herein petitioners, remained in actual and peaceful possession of said land until 1988 when private respondents filed their action to recover possession of the land.

The foregoing sufficiently establish that Anastacio Cutanda was in possession of the land covered by Tax Declaration No. 6983, which has an area of 31.0929 hectares, from 1933 up to 1968, or a period of 35 years. Such possession appears to be adverse, continuous and in the concept of an owner because Anastacio Cutanda cultivated the land, thereby, performing an act of ownership over it. It is to be noted that Anastacio’s possession began under the former Civil Code.

Under the Code of Civil Procedure, therefore, ten years of actual adverse possession was required, regardless of how such occupancy may have commenced or continued, before possession ripened into full and complete title over the land. Applying this to the present case, by 1943, ten years after his possession of the subject parcel of land had begun, Anastacio Cutanda became owner of the land in question through acquisitive prescription.