Asencio v. Alvarez

10 P.R. 102
Supreme Court of Puerto Rico·Decided February 2, 1906·No. No. 60·Published

Opinion

Mr. Justice Figueras

delivered the opinion of the court.

Pablo Asencio brought an action in the District Court of San Juan against Belén Alvarez Torres to compel her to execute a deed of sale to a rural estate which the plaintiff had bought of Juan Asencio, the husband of the defendant and the son of the plaintiff, and paid for, and to indemnify him for loss and damage in the sum of $500, and to pay the costs.

The hearing having been had, the judge of the District Court of San Juan rendered judgment on April 25th of last year, holding that the facts and the law were in favor of the plaintiff with regard to the execution of the deed, but not [103]*103with, regard to the indemnity for loss and damage; and, consequently, the defendant, Belén Alvarez Torres, was adjudged, in her own right and as the mother, with patria po-testas over her children, Francisco Javier, Francisca Ana María, Eloísa, Jnan Pablo, and Jnan Cecilio Asencio y Alvarez, to execute a deed perfecting the sale made by her predecessor in interest; that is to say, by Jnan Ascencio y Castro, who was the husband of the said Belén Alvarez Torres and the father of the said minor children, in favor of Pablo Asen-cio, of the estate whose -area, situation, and boundaries are set forth in the said judgment, which was entered on April 28th of last year, the opinion signed by the judge forming a part of this judgment, and which opinion is herein transcribed for the sake of clearness.

“The complaint filed in this cause was directed against Belén Alvarez Torres, widow of Asencio, and was later amended and directed against the said Belén Alvarez Torres, in her' own right and as the the mother, with patria potestas over her children had by her marriage with Juan Asencio.
“The plaintiff seeks the execution in his favor of a certain deed to an estate which he alleges he bought of his son, Juan Asencio, the former husband of said Belén Alvarez Torres. No document has been produced establishing the .existence of a contract of purchase and sale; but thp testimony of witnesses has been introduced to show that such a contract did exist, that the purchaser, who is the plaintiff, had paid the price and that the vendor had not executed a deed. The estate involved has been fully identified both by the description thereof in the amended complaint and the deed presented by the plaintiff, executed in 1888 before Notary Mauricio Guerra, by which said' estate was conveyed to the said Juan Asencio.
“This is a ease worthy of attention. The evidence heard has been full and complete. The first witness who testified for the plaintiff was Miguel Matos, the former owner of the estate, who appears as the vendor to Juan Asencio in the deed of 1888; and this witness affirms in a categorical manner that he had possessed the estate; that Pablo Asencio, the plaintiff-, came to buy it, and that he had sold it to him; that they came to Santurce and the son of Pablo Asencio paid the money; that the son wished to have the deed executed in the name of his father, and that the father did not wish to have this [104]*104done until he had finished ■ paying therefor, and that subsequently the son had brought him a certain sum of money from his father. Other witnesses testified that they had heard from the lips of Juan Asencio that said estate belonged to his father, the plaintiff; others that they took money from the plaintiff to his said son. And, finally, it appears that the plaintiff had been paying the taxes on said estate for more than ten years previously, and had been in possession thereof since 1888, when the deed of sale was executed by Miguel Matos in favor of Juan Asencio.
“The testimony of the plaintiff, an aged man, was given in such a natural manner, with so many details, that it appeared that he was really telling the truth in everything he said. .And if we consider all the evidence introduced as a whole, both presented by the plaintiff and that presented by the defendants, the unavoidable conclusion is reached that the proper judgment in this case is to sustain the complaint.
“This man, who had been thinking of purchasing the estate ever since 1888, carried out his intention, made the payment of the price through his son, paid the latter on a number of occasions sums which it is alleged exceeded the 500 ;pesos which was the price of the estate, paid taxes for more than ten years, and possessed and had himself been living on said property for sixteen years; he has a perfect right to expect that we should exercise our authority to order that his situation be legalized, and that the deed of sale be executed by the present heirs of Juan Asencio, his son who died intestate and who left a considerable amount of property. San Juan, P. B., May 18, 1905.-— Signed: Emilio del Toro, district judge.”

In Ms opinion the trial judge says that no document -whatsoever has been presented showing the existence of the contract of purchase and sale, but he considers that the existence of the contract was proven; that the purchaser, now the plaintiff, ‘had previously paid the 500 pesos, the agreed price of the sale; that the proper deed had not been executed, and that the property in question had been perfectly identified.

The defendant and appellant has submitted to this Supreme Court, which is taking cognizance of the foregoing judgment on appeal, copies of the depositions of the witnesses who testified in the action, certified to by Antonio Laloma, the reporter, and he seeks to show therewith that the district [105]*105judge erred in weighing the evidence. No duly -formulated bill of exceptions lias been presented, and on this ground the claim of the appellant is attacked by Attorney Cayetano Coll y Cuchí on behalf of the respondent; which objection is supported by the law which prescribes what is the adequate manner of discussing in this court the evidence upon which the judgment court found its facts and to apply the law thereto.

It is impossible for an appellate court to consider the evidence as presented here. To make it worthy of such consideration and to arrive at a solution in favor of or adverse to the findings of the judge the provisions of sections 214, 216, and in a proper case, of section 218 of the Code of Civil Procedure should have been complied with. In this manner the facts would be presented with the authority which the intervention of the adverse party would give them, when this is possible, and especially with the intervention of the judge when he affirms that they are the facts which formed flip basis of the opinion embodied in his judgment. Then we could say whether such facts had been properly fdund or not; and, consequently, whether the law had not been properly applied.

But the following argument might be made:

The law approved March 12, 1903, which established this Supreme Court as a court of appeals, provides that, in furtherance of justice, the court may take cognizance of all the facts and proceedings in the ease as they appear in the record; then it can consider the evidence in the form in which it appears here.

But we must not lose sight of the fact that the English edition says “as they appear in the record,” and in an appeal the word “record” has no other meaning than that given in sectons 299 and 233, subdivision 2, of the Code of Civil Procedure, which provides:

“Section 299.

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Asencio v. Alvarez, 10 P.R. 102 (prsupreme 1906).

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