Succession of Alfonzo v. Rosso
Succession of Alfonzo v. Rosso
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is an appeal from a judgment rendered by the District Court of Arecibo in an action for the liquidation of a partnership, the annulment of deeds and other matters.
The complaint substantially alleges as follows: That about the year 1840 Manuel and Pedro Eosso formed an industrial partnership in Arecibo which continued until January 14, 1879, when it was dissolved by the death of Pedro Eosso; that said Pedro Eosso had several children, among them Eosa J oaquina Eosso who married Alfredo C. Alf onzo; that the succession of Eosa Joaquina Eosso and Alfredo C. Alf onzo is composed of the plaintiffs in this action; that Manuel Eosso, with the consent of his brother and partner, Pedro, simulated a sale by the latter to the former of all his property and to secure Pedro in his rights to the property conveyed, Manuel made a will naming Pedro as his usufruc-tuary heir of a life estate in all the property he might leave at his death; that besides making Pedro his usufructuary heir., the said Manuel, in fraud of the lawful heirs of Pedro, named his nieces, Josefa Eita and Emilia Eosso, daughters of Pedro, and Josefa Eita, a foundling, as his sole and universal heirs upon the termination of the said usufructuary .life estate, of a third part of his property, and his nephews and nieces, Eosa Joaquina, Pedro José, Eduardo and Juan Eosso, legitimate children of Pedro, Manuel Antonio and José Enrique, foundlings, and Francisco Eodriguez, of the other two-thirds; that Pedro died on January 14, 1879; that
The complaint concludes with the prayers: (1) That a liquidation of the partnership of Eosso Brothers be ordered; (2) That the will of Manuel Eosso and the deed of partition of the property he left be declared null and void; (3) That the proper testamentary proceedings be had for the allotment of the hereditary estates of Pedro and Manuel Eosso.
The defendants demurred on the following grounds: (1) Misjoinder of actions; (2) Insufficient facts to constitute a cause of action; (3) Lack of cause of action based particularly on prescription. The demurrer was sustained on all its grounds, and as the plaintiff succession was not granted leave to amend its complaint, judgment was rendered at its instance and then the plaintiff appealed therefrom to this court.
We have considered carefully all the questions involved in the case and, in our opinion, the judgment appealed from should be affirmed.
The action pro socio between partners which the heirs of
And even if the action of the plaintiffs could be considered as an action to claim inheritance, it would have prescribed also at the time when it was brought because of the lapse of more than the thirty years fixed by the said Law LXIII of Toro.
The Supreme Court of Spain, in its judgment of January 20, 1866, XIII Civil Jurisprudence, 69, held “that an action to claim inheritance for the recovery of property from one in lawful possession thereof prescribes in favor of such possessor in thirty years, and a judgment so decreeing is not in violation of Law LXIII of Toro, the 6th Fuero de Prescriptionibus or the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court based upon these laws. ”
The same Supreme Court of Spain, in its judgment of May 17, 1887, LXI Civil Jurisprudence, 799, as it had repeatedly done before, held that if the period of thirty years prescribed by Law LXIII of Toro is allowed to elapse “rights, however worthy they may be, are lost and acts which .are even null or vicious become valid if the proper action is not made use of in due time to annul them, for the reason -that a question of public policy is involved.?’
And as to the annulment of the will and partition of the
If the plaintiffs in this action have any rights against Manuel Eosso or his successors, snch rights, according to the complaint, would he derived from the simulated contract entered into by the said Mannel Eosso and his brother Pedro, the father of Eosa Joaquina Eosso who was the mother of the plaintiffs, by which contract it appears that Pedro sold all his property to Manuel, and we. have seen already that such rights had proscribed by the lapse of more than thirty years.
By virtue of the simulated contract, if such it were, all the property apparently passed at once, or at least from the year 1879, to the possession of Manuel. He held the said property during his life as his own and disposed of it as his •own to take effect after his death which occurred in 1896, in which same year the said property was distributed among Ms testamentary heirs, among whom was Eosa Joaquina, the mother of the plaintiffs.
And so that which was unlawful and null and void when it was done having acquired practical reality at least since January 14, 1879, when Pedro died and all his property actually passed to Manuel, the said reality having continued for .a period of more than thirty years, it at least was converted into á valid act and cannot now be overthrown.
And this conclusion appears much more obvious and just when those who seek to recover are the children of a testamentary heir of Manuel Eosso, which heir had accepted the .■share which, according to the testament and the partition, belonged to her in the estate of Manuel, fourteen years before the complaint was filed.
Having reached the foregoing conclusions, there is no .necessity for even discussing the fact that the third prayer of the complaint to the effect that the proper testamentary proceedings should be had for the allotment of the estates of Pedro and Manuel Eosso, is-manifestly without merit.
Affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.