Blanco v. Hernández
Blanco v. Hernández
Opinion of the Court
DISSENTING OPINION OF
The ground upon which a majortiy of this court rests its opinion that the share of $1,776.50 which Clotilde Aran once had in the estate involved in this action is the property of the plaintiff, Alejandrina Blanco Bamirez, affirming in regard to this point the judgment appealed from, which judgment
It is well to remember that the conveyance referred to in the action in intervention was presented in the registry of property for record after Hernández Mena had acquired the mortgage credit of Clotilde Arán and after he had had her share in the property adjudicated to him in payment of the said mortgage credit.
We do not concur with our associates in their opinion that a person loses the character of an innocent third party because he is informed of a sale by a mere statement in an allegation, nor that after having gained such information it is his duty to apply to the office where the same has been recorded for the purpose of verifying the statement.
The simple reference to certain facts in an allegation does not make such facts true and correct, and, therefore, the statement which the intervenor made in her complaint to the effect that she had purchased the property in litigation cannot operate against Agustín Hernández Mena, nor can that mere reference be considered as the ground upon which to rest the theory that by so simple a statement a subsequent purchaser should be deemed to have been informed of the sale without any doubt whatever, losing for that sole
There is no legal precept that we know of, nor has the majority of this court cited any in its opinion, imposing upon a party the obligation of applying to public offices for the purpose of verifying a purchase the consummation of which has been recited in an allegation. Let us suppose that Alejandrina Blanco Ramirez had alleged that she made the purchase in another country, would Agustín Hernández Mena be compelled to go to that country for the purpose of verifying such purchase? The majority of this court seems to have answered this in the affirmative.
The only obligation that we know of imposed upon a purchaser by the mortgage law is that of searching the records of the registry of property to ascertain who has the title to the property. And in the case at bar when Agustín Her-nández Mena acquired the share of $1,776.50 of Clotilde Arán in payment of the $2,000 mortgage the owner thereof, according to the books of the registry, was Clotilde Arán and not Alejandrina Blanco Ramirez.
Therefore, as we stated and demonstrated in our dissenting opinion in Manuel Jordán Correa v. Federico A. Gómez, decided March 30, 1912, if it is the registry of property and not the municipal or district courts, nor the marshals, nor the newspapers, nor, we may add, the offices of the collector of internal revenue, or of the Treasurer where one should ascertain who the owner of a property is, how can it possibly be held that a simple statement by a person, verbal or written, to the effect that he had purchased a piece of property be taken as evidence that the party who has knowledge of it is informed without any doubt of the truthfulness of the transaction and that he should suffer loss if he purchased it from the owner shown in the registry?
The decision rendered by the Supreme Court of Spain on
If, as we stated in our dissenting opinion above mentioned, which was supported by opinions cited, not even the recording of that complaint in the registry of property would be sufficient to deprive Hernandez Mena of his character of an innocent third party, we do not see how a simple allegation of a complaint can do so.
For the reasons above stated and inasmuch as Agustín Hernández Mena has not lost his character of innocent third party and has acquired the $2,000 mortgage and afterwards the share of $1,776.50 belonging to Clotilde Arán in payment of the said mortgage on the strength of the records in the registry he should have been adjudged to be the' owner of the said share, and the judgment appealed from, as far as that particular point is concerned, should have been reversed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.