Ayala v. Flores

50 P.R. 832
CourtSupreme Court of Puerto Rico
DecidedFebruary 4, 1937
DocketNo. 6830
StatusPublished

This text of 50 P.R. 832 (Ayala v. Flores) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Puerto Rico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ayala v. Flores, 50 P.R. 832 (prsupreme 1937).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Travieso

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Bank of San Juan, owner of a parcel of 95,856 square meters, executed a mortgage on the same in favor of Ber-nabé Sabaher to secure payment to the latter of seven promissory notes. After the execution of the mortgage the Bank segregated from the said parcel and sold to the plaintiff a lot of 124.80 square meters, stating that there was no building whatever on the property sold. Once owner of the said lot, the plaintiff built on it a wooden house worth $1,000.

The heirs of Bernabé Sabalier, owners of the last four mortgage notes of the Bank of San Juan were sued by an attorney for his fees. The four notes were adjudicated to the attorney in payment of the judgment for fees and he endorsed them to the defendant S- veriana López. The lat[834]*834ter foreclosed the mortgage by a summary proceeding brought against the Bank of San Juan and third persons who had purchased the different portions segregated from the mortgaged parcel, among them the plaintiff.

In her first caus,e of action the plaintiff alleges that payment was not demanded of her nor was the warning ordered by the court given her; that the plaintiff’s lot was sold at public auction to- the defendant Severiana López on September 21, 1928; and that the auction, award, and sale of the lot are void and inexistent acts, because the demand and the warning were not served on the plaintiff.

In the second cause of action the allegations of the first .are reproduced, and it is alleged that on January 31, 1931, the District Court of San Juan rendered judgment holding void and inexistent the adjudication of the four promissory "notes to attorney Quinones and the endorsement of the said . documents made by the latter to the defendant Severiana López; that the appeal taken was dismissed as frivolous by order of the Supreme Court on March 16, 1932, of which the parties were notified and which is final (See Fernández v. Abella, 43 P.R.R. 208); and that since the title of Severiana López as mortgage creditor was held inexistent the foreclosure proceeding is also void and inexistent.

- As a third cause of action, after reproducing the facts already stated, it is alleged “that the plaintiff’s lot was not appraised when it was sold, nor was the lot sold with the house, but alone, and that the plaintiff was not paid the value of the house”; and that for those alleged reasons the auction, the award and the sale to the defendant are null and ■ void.

As a fourth cause of action the plaintiff alleges that on March 1, 1930, the defendant Severiana López sold the house = and lot to defendant José Dolores Flores, ■ who took possession of the property on that date.

In the fifth cause of action it is alleged that the defendant •Flores is unlawfully in possession of the property; that from [835]*835February, 1929, up to the date of the complaint the defendant has received the sum of $800 as rent for the house and lot; and that said defendant has destroyed the house built by the plaintiff and has appropriated the materials of the same.

The plantiff prays for a judgment holding all of the proceedings and titles mentioned in the preceding statement of facts null and void; holding her to be the owner and replacing her in possession of the property; ordering defendant Flores to pay the plaintiff $1,000 for the house destroyed and $800 as rent; and ordering both defendants to pay the costs.

The defendants denied the essential allegations of the complaint and as special defenses alleged: (1) that the facts alleged were not sufficient to constitute a cause of action; (2) that the judgment holding the transfer of the promissory notes to the attorneys to be null and void did not in any way affect the validity of the summary foreclosure proceeding brought by Severiana López against the plaintiff Asun-ción Ayala, nor did it confer any right on the latter, since she was not a party to the suit in which the said judgment was rendered, nor did it affect the rights of the defendant Flores who likewise was not a party to the said suit; (3) that the plaintiff is estopped from claiming the improvements and additions to the lot, (a) because she did not claim them before or at the public sale of the property; and (6) because the deed of the Bank to the plaintiff did not state that the lot did not contain constructions of any kind, and because the mortgage creditors were not notified of the recording of the sale, as required by Section 163 of the Regulations of the Mortgage Law.

The district court rendered judgment holding all the proceedings and titles which constitute the basis of the alleged rights of the defendants to be null and void, and ordering-defendant Flores to pay the plaintiff, as the value of the house destroyed, the sum of $383 plus interest at the legal rate from July 1, 1931. Both defendants were ordered to [836]*836pay costs and attorney’s fees. The present appeal has been taken from that judgment.

The nine errors assigned may be reduced to two as follows:

(1) The court erred in admitting in evidence a copy of the Statement of the Case, Opinion and Judgment rendered in the civil ease of Antonia Fernández González v. López Cosme & Co., no. 7180.

(2) The court erred in holding the summary foreclosure proceeding to be null and void on the ground of the nullity of the demand for payment made on the plaintiff Asunción Ayala.

We shall discuss them in the order in which we have stated them.

The record shows that at the trial the attorney for the plaintiff stated that he wished to offer in evidence the opinion and judgment rendered in case no. 7180 of Antonio, Fernández v. Cosme López & Co., but since the case was not on file because it was in the judge’s possession, he offered the copy which had been delivered to him. The attorney for the defendants objected on the ground that neither of the present defendants had been such in case no. 7180, and in addition, that the said case had no connection with the instant case. The ruhng of the court, admitting the copy offered in evidence is as follows:

“The parties having been heard and it being admitted that the copy offered is a true and exact copy of the Statement of the Case and Opinion and Judgment in the ease of Antonia Fernández González v. Cosme López & Co., Civil no. 7180 for Nullity of Sale and other purposes, in which an appeal taken by the defendant was dismissed, the judgment being firm; and since case No. 6805, the nullity of which was involved in said case, appears to have been brought by Severiana López, who was later substituted by Cosme López and Co., Severiana López being a defendant in this case, the Court admits the document for such evidentiary value as it may have, and marks it Exhibit 4.”

In their brief the appellants argue that the document in question was not admissible, because it was neither the original nor a copy certified by the Clerk. That objection [837]*837comes too late. The defendants should have made it at the time the document was offered in evidence, in order that the lower court might have the opportunity to decide the merits of the opposition. By not doing’ so they waived the objection on that ground and accepted the document offered in evidence as a true and exact copy of its original.

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50 P.R. 832, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ayala-v-flores-prsupreme-1937.