Commonwealth v. Márquez

93 P.R. 382
CourtSupreme Court of Puerto Rico
DecidedMarch 29, 1966
DocketNo. AP-65-16
StatusPublished

This text of 93 P.R. 382 (Commonwealth v. Márquez) 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
Commonwealth v. Márquez, 93 P.R. 382 (prsupreme 1966).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Rigau

délivered the opinion of the Court.

This is an attack on the constitutionality of § 76 of Title V of the Land Law of Puerto Rico.1 We must examine the problem posed and the facts of the case in close relation to the society where such problem is produced.

The comprehensive program of economic, political and social reform which is in progress in Puerto Rico since 1941 is of common knowledge.2

One of the most far-reaching social programs and of greater benefit for the poor people of the rural communities of this Island is that embodied in Title V of the Land Law of Puerto Rico.3

[384]*384Puerto Rico, with a population of 2,572,000 inhabitants4 and a population density of approximately 700 persons per square mile,5 with an approximate area of 2,199,000 acres of which, because of their mountainous condition, only 603,555 acres are capable of cultivation all the time and 91,683 may be cultivated occasionally,6 has approximately less than one third of cultivable acre per person.

For a brief exposition of the human and social evils which the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico intended to cure, see the Declaration of Policy of the aforesaid Land Law (Laws of 1941, p. 390, 28 L.P.R.A. § 241, annotation). There were dozens of thousands of families, comprising several hundreds of thousands of persons, who lived as “agre-gados” (squatters) on another’s land. An “agregado,” as defined in the Land Law, is a family head, or a person living alone, residing in the rural zone, whose home is established in a house and lands belonging to another person, or in his own house erected on lands belonging to another person, whose only means of livelihood is his labor for a wage earned from agricultural tasks and who does not possess land as owner. 28 L.P.R.A. § 555.

Through the program of Title Y of the Land Law the Social Programs Administration of the Department of Agriculture of Puerto Rico, a public agency which administers the program, cedes gratuitously in perpetual usufruct to the “agregados” a parcel of land having an area- of not less than one “cuadro” nor more than three cuerdas.7

[385]*385The purpose of the program is to provide to the rural families living as “agregados” a parcel of land for establishing their home permanently. They are not thus subject to the uncertainty, anxiety and vexation which they suffered in their condition of “agregados,” when they could be ejected from the farms where they lived at the mere caprice of their owners or in reprisal for some disagreement. To these ends the Social Programs Administration acquires, by purchase or condemnation, lands which because of their location and other physical conditions are fit for establishing rural communities. Those lands are subdivided into small parcels and adjudicated by drawing, in perpetual usufruct, to family heads who qualify under the Act.

By June 1965, 67,161 families of “agregados” had been reinstalled in 375 rural communities. The design of these communities provides for the establishment of services and facilities such as schools, health centers, athletic parks, churches, private commercial establishments, and community centers.8 It is estimated that some 400,000 persons, or approximately one fourth of the rural population of Puerto Rico, live in these communities. There they enjoy the real and psychological security of having a permanent home of their own and services such as water, electric light and schools. It is estimated that there are still some 22,000 peasant families living as “agregados” who wish to establish themselves in the rural communities of this program.9

The case being already focused in its historical and sociological reality, let us examine next its specific facts and the law applicable thereto. In 1949 the Social Programs Administration ceded in usufruct a parcel of land of ap[386]*386proximately 1,000 square meters (one “cuadro”) to Tomasa Parrilla, a poor peasant woman of the jurisdiction of the Municipality of Luquillo, Puerto Rico, where she could establish her home.

In 1959 Ramón Luis Márquez, a merchant and resident of Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, “purchased” for $400 from Tomasa Parrilla the perpetual usufruct of the said parcel. The parcel in question is located in Luquillo, on the northeast coast- of Puerto Rico, and is adjacent to the beach. Márquez also acquired for that price Tomasa’s small house, a one-story paper-roofed frame structure having a frontage of 12 feet and a depth of 14 feet. In an effort to make this transaction legal — we shall see later what the law provides on the matter — this was accomplished by a deed subscribed before an attorney and notary, on which Tomasa, who could not write, impressed her fingerprints.

Subsequently the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, represented by the Secretary of Agriculture, sued Márquez and the vendor to recover the usufruct of the parcel, with its accessions, in order to redevote it to the aforesaid public purposes pursuant to the provisions of Title V of the Land Law. Plaintiff prevailed at the trial. The purchaser, defendant Ramón Luis Márquez, attacks before us the constitutionality of § 76 of the Land Law, 28 L.P.R.A. § 553. We must therefore refer to that section.

That section begins by providing that in the communities to be established, the Social Programs Administration shall cede gratuitously, in usufruct, to the “agregados” a parcel of land having an area of not less than one cuadro nor more than three cuerdas. It provides that in those farms to be devoted to these purposes which are located in districts where the high cost of the land, the density of the population, or where the topography so justifies, the Social Programs Administration may, upon the approval of the Planning Board and of the Governor, establish parcels of an area of less [387]*387than one fourth of a cuerda. Further on, that section provides the following:

“The usufructuary may not, under penalty of absolute abatement, sell, transfer, exchange, rent, cede, assign, lease, or in any manner alienate or encumber, in whole or in part, the usufruct right granted him, neither the parcel of land over which the said right is granted him, nor the buildings, accessions, or improvements existing or which he may in the future construct or make thereon, nor any right, title, or privilege arising from the usu-fruct contract; Provided, That any violation of this clause of the contract shall vest no legal rights whatsoever in any purported acquirer, assignee, or creditor, but shall, on the contrary, without need of judicial pronouncement to that effect, be grounds for seizure, in behalf of the Social Programs Administration, of the usufruct right granted the usufructuary in the parcel, as well as of all interest, right, and action which the purported transferor and/or transferee, creditor and/or debtor, vendor, or acquirer, have or may have in the parcel granted in usufruct, or in the improvements, buildings, accessions, or sown fields existing thereon, the Social Programs Administration being at liberty to dispose of the said parcel, building, structure, sown field, or improvement, without obligation to compensate or pay any person any sum whatsoever for any reason;

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93 P.R. 382, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-marquez-prsupreme-1966.