Orama v. Oyanguren

19 P.R. 788
Procedural entryThis page is a short order in Orama v. Oyanguren. Read the opinion of the Court — 19 P.R. Dec. 828
Supreme Court of Puerto Rico·Decided June 24, 1913·No. No. 937·Published

Opinion

Mr. Justice Audrey

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an appeal taken by Margarita Oyanguren from a judgment of the District Court of San Juan, Section 1, entered on October'12, 1912, decreeing that the plaintiffs, Ana Luisa and Ana Teresa Orama, are the acknowledged natural children of Nicolas Oyanguren with the rights corresponding to such status.

The defendant and appellant demurred to the complaint on the grounds that the court had no jurisdiction over her person and. in case this ground should be overruled, that the complaint is uncertain. The demurrer was overruled by the court and this decision is the basis of the first two errors on which the appellant relies in the appeal. A motion was made afterwards to strike out certain allegations of the complaint, one of which the court refused to strike out and this ruling is considered erroneous by the appellant and assigned as her third ground of appeal. The fourth and fifth errors alleged refer to the improper admission of evidence by the court at [790]*790the trial and tlie permission granted the plaintiffs during the trial to amend the complaint. The last two assignments of error directly attack the judgment in that it overrules the plea of res judicata and is not supported by the evidence.

The complaint alleges that the plaintiffs, who were born on this Island, were acknowledged as his natural children by acts performed here by Nicolás Oyanguren, and .they pray that the court so decree granting them all other rights conferred by the law in force at the time of the death of their father. The complaint is against Margarita Oyanguren as the heiress of her father, Nicolas Oyanguren. She resides in Spain and her domicile is unknown. On the ground that the complaint does not allege that the appellant possesses property in Porto Rico and that no attachment has been levied here on property belonging to her, the appellant maintains that for the aforesaid reasons and as the complaint sets up a personal action, the court had no jurisdiction over her person in the present case. '

There is no doubt that the action which may be brought by a child to secure by means of evidence a decree designating his natural father, is a personal right of his, therefore when the child is in possession of such right it should be governed by the law under which it was acquired and all matters concerning the status of the person should be governed by the law of the country of the person who brings the action. The civil status of citizens is governed entirely by the laws of their own country and can be determined only pursuant thereto. Consequently, although it is a general rule that a court does not acquire jurisdiction over non-residents in personal actions unless they have been summoned personally within the State or possess property therein which has been attached, nevertheless said general rule cannot be applied to cases which involve the civil status of the individual, within which is included an action of filiation, because it being a right originating by conception and birth such right cannot be subjected to the contingency that the alleged father or the [791]*791legal representatives of liis personality may have absented themselves from the country of the individual entitled to acknowledgment, considering that such right is not recognized in all countries and that in some countries evidence of acknowledgment. is not admitted for the reason that it is deemed contrary to public order and good custom as there understood. In this connection the Supreme Court of - the United States in the case of Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S., 714, said:

“To prevent any misapplication of the views expressed in this opinion, it is proper to observe that we do not mean to assert, by anything we have said, that a State may not authorize proceedings to determine the status of one of its citizens towards a non-resident, which would be binding within the State, though made without service of process or personal notice to the non-resident. The jurisdiction which every State possesses to determine the civil status and capacities of all its inhabitants involves authority to prescribe the conditions on which proceedings affecting them may be commenced and carried on within its territory. The State, for example, has absolute right to prescribe the conditions upon which the marriage relation between its own citizens shall be created, and the causes for which it may be dissolved. One of the parties guilty of acts for which, by the law of the State, a dissolution may be granted, may have removed to a State where no dissolution is permitted. The complaining party would, therefore, fail if a divorce were sought in the State of the defendant; and if application could not be made to the tribunals of the complainant’s domicile in such case, and proceedings be there instituted without personal service of process or personal notice to the off ending party, the injured citizen would be without .redress. ’ ’

Therefore, we may conclude by saying that the courts of the country of a person who seeks to establish his civil status have jurisdiction over non-resident defendants, although they may not have been summoned personally therein nor possess property therein, for which reason the lower court did not commit the first error alleged by the appellant.

The second error assigned is that the court overruled the plea that the complaint was uncertain notwithstanding the [792]*792fact that while one of the allegations thereof is that on various occasions and before several people Nicolás Oyanguren acknowledged that he was the father of the plaintiffs, another allegation says that Oyanguren had never legally acknowledged them to be his natural children. According to our understanding of the complaint the first allegation sets up the acts of acknowledgment performed by the father and alleged by the plaintiffs as a basis for the decree prayed for from the court, while the other alleges only that the plaintiffs liave not been acknowledged in a valid and effective manner; that is, that the acknowledgment is not witnessed in any .authentic and' effective document in such a way as to obviate the necessity of their resorting to a court to obtain a judicial •declaration of their status as such natural children. For these reasons we¡ do not consider the complaint uncertain, as contended by the appellant.

The refusal of the court to strike out certain parts of the complaint is alleged as a basis for the third assignment of error herein. The third and fourth allegations of the complaint read as follows:

“3d. That both at the time of the birth and at the time of the conception of the plaintiffs, Nicolás Oyanguren was a widower and Fabiana Orama was single and they were living in concubinage in the house of Oyanguren, during which concubinage Fabiana Orama conceived and gave birth to the plaintiffs.
4th. That the mother of the plaintiffs died six years ago and subsequent to her death and more particularly in the years 1910 and 1911 Nicolás Oyanguren acknowledged that he was the father of the plaintiffs on several occasions and before various persons.”

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Orama v. Oyanguren, 19 P.R. 788 (prsupreme 1913).

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