Boneta v. Boneta
Boneta v. Boneta
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
On November 23, 1912, Tomás Boneta died in the city of Arecibo. He left several children as his heirs. At the instance of interested persons Charles TO.-Lawton was appointed administrator of his estate.
One of the children, Luis Celestino Boneta, brought this action against the Succession of Tomás Boneta, represented by the said administrator and the other heirs,-. The complaint alleges that a certain contract for the purchase and sale of a rural property called Jobo of 1,100 acres situated in Rio Arriba, Arecibo, was entered into between the plaintiff and the author of the succession and prays that the succession be ordered to carry out the contract by executing the corresponding deed.
Leopoldo B. Strube intervened in the suit and alleged, in synopsis, that he was the owner and held possession of the said property, which had been sold to him by Tomás Boneta for the deferred price of five thousand dollars which he was willing and ready to deliver. He prayed for judgment ordering1 the succession to carry out the contract by receiving the price and executing, the corresponding deed. .
Some .of the defendant heirs confessed judgment, others answered in opposition to the complaint that the sale referred to by plaintiff Luis Celestino Boneta was simulated between father and son, and others failed to answer. As to the com
The case went to trial and much documentary and oral evidence was examined. Finally the court rendered judgment dismissing the complaint of Luis Celestino Boneta and sustaining the complaint in intervention, consequently adjudging that the defendants execute in favor of Leopoldo B. Strube a public deed of sale to the property in question, its execution to take place upon the payment by Strube to the defendants of the sum of five thousand dollars 'together with interest at the rate of fifty dollars a month owed by Strube since July 1, 1911. Luis Celestino Boneta alone appealed from that judgment.
The appeal was first heard by three of the justices of this court and later by the full bench. We have considered carefully the pleadings, the evidence, the briefs and the arguments of counsel and have no doubt that the complaint of Luis Celestino Boneta was properly dismissed. The evidence was extensively analyzed by the trial judge. In some particulars we do not agree with his analysis, but we all agree with the result.
The greatest difficulty in getting at the merits of this case in order to arrive at a just decision is in weighing the evidence as to whether the contract, which undoubtedly was inchoated between Tomás B.oneta and Strube, came to be perfected and continued in all its force in such a manner that the Succession of Boneta is bound to its performance.
The question which arises first is whether, none of the members of the Succession of Boneta having appealed except plaintiff Luis Celestino, this court being convinced that
We agree with the trial court that the evidence shows the existence of a perfect contract between Tomás Boneta and Strube, as there was consent, subject-matter and consideration. According to section 1353 of the Civil Code, “The sale shall be perfected between vendor and vendee and shall be binding on both of them, if they have agreed upon the thing which is the object of the contract and upon the price, even when .neither has been delivered. ’ ’ Here the thing was delivered, but not the purchase price. The fact that the purchase price was not delivered does not prevent the conclusion, as has been seen, that the contract became perfected.
“Succession is the transmission of the rights and obligations of a deceased person to his heirs.” Sec. 664-u of the Civil Code. Therefore the succession is bound in this case to perform the contract made by its ancestor and the district court correctly so adjudged.
The judgment appealed from is
Affirmed.
Concurring Opinion
ooQsrouRRijsrG opinion op
I agree with so much of the majority opinion as dismisses the complaint of Luis C. Boneta. Although a paper writing'
On the other hand, Strube’s alleged contract depends on the following rather informal facts:
In 1907 Leopoldo Strube was the owner of the farm Jobo. On or about that time he made a mortgage to Tomás Boneta for $5,000, with interest at the rate of 1 per cent a month, or $600 a year. Leopoldo Strube was at the time deeply indebted and one of his creditors was his aunt, Erica Schroeder, who on or about December, 1908, obtained an attachment against him in the Federal Court in the sum of $48,000. and among the properties attached was the farm Jobo. Swift & Company also obtained an attachment against the same property in the sum of $2,500. On December 31, 1908, Strube and Erica Schroeder made a contract by which Strube transferred to his said aunt a certain amount of property, including the farm Jobo. In this way Strube obtained a release of all the debts he owed his aunt, Erica Schroeder. Exactly when Strube parted with the xiossession of the property Jobo is not perfectly clear in the record, but he was out of possession in December, 1909. About this last-mentioned date To-más Boneta and Strube entered into conversations about the property Jobo. Strube, in the main, is a truthful witness and was evidently believed by the court below, and I have no rea
To my mind from the whole testimony it is perfectly clear that Boneta was willing to sell to Strube, but only willing to. sell if Strube would save him, Boneta, harmless from any costs occasioned by the execution of the mortgage. In other words, Boneta wished to have his mortgage for $5,000 free of any charges, and he did not want to retain the property. Strube testified that this proposition of Boneta’s became a contract between them. In any event, early in 1910 a foreclosure proceeding was begun and as Boneta was the highest bidder the property was sold to him in the sum of $6'125. Almost immediately after the sale of Jobo to Boneta, Strube was put in possession of the property in the name of Boneta. The hooks of Boneta were produced at the trial and therein is .an account between Boneta and Strube wherein Boneta entered the payments of interest made by Strube. This account was continued by Boneta after the foreclosure sale and payments of interest were entered as made every six months or so, without any change in the account by reason of the sale.
Cross-examined Strube said that the money belonged to his brother and except that this money would be forthcoming from his brother he would not have been able to make the alleged agreement with Boneta. Nevertheless,, as soon as the date of this “frustrated” contract (contrato fracasado), as Strube dubs it, had passed by, Koester turned over the $5,000 to Strube, who devoted it to other purposes. It ..is not at all clear from the record why Strube did not take the property at this time, subject as it was, according to him, to two harmless attachments in the registry of property. However, Strube and Boneta together went to see attorney Martin Travieso and Strube said that Travieso was retained to get rid of these Jtwo attachments. Travieso’s memory was apparently a little at fault because lie testified that he was
On November 23, 1912, Tomás Boneta died intoslatn A declaration of heirship was promptly taken by all the heirs and the property inventoried, and among the inventoried property was the farm Jobo.
Leopoldo Strube relied on an alleged executory contract of sale and offered to pay an alleged agreed price, or the balance of the agreed price, to obtain a specific performance of the alleged contract by the heirs of Tomás Boneta. The appellant very well draws attention to the fact that the legal relation between Tomás Boneta and Strube was a promise of sale in case certain things then not existing should be brought about. At the time of the alleged agreement Boneta was not the owner of the property and he could not sell to Strube a piece of property which was in the name of Erica Scliroeder, so that at the time of the alleged agreement its terms were impossible of performance. Strube was merely agreeing that he would some time take the property off Bo-
It does not appear anywhere that Strube at the time of the alleged agreement between himself and Boneta, between the Fall of 1909 and the Spring of 1910, paid any consideration to Boneta or suffered any detriment. On the contrary I think he was most anxious to be put into possession of the property Jobo. The appellant also points out that if there was any contrail between Strube and Boneta, the latter did everything that was required of him to fulfil it and that the alleged contract fell through. In point of fact, Boneta went to the office of Paz Urdaz prepared to execute any kind of a deed that Strube wanted, but Strube did not appear for. himself but had his agent, Koester, appear, who had $5,000 belonging to Strube’s brother and who was prepared to take a deed for $5,000. The notary showed that the attachments of Erica Schroder and Swift & Company appeared in the registry of property as charges, and Koester refused to sign.
I think, whatever understanding there was between Bo-neta and Strube, that Boneta had tendered a full performance. Anything that he might do thereafter was out of the goodness of his heart. In point of fact, both Strube and Boneta went to the office of Travieso where, Strube says, they employed the said attorney to get rid of the attachments. The attachments, however, were still existing in 1915, at the date of the trial. At the date of the trial, so far as these attachments
My attention has been drawn to section 1095 of the Oivii (hide, lmt my opinion is that-it applies more particularly to a specific debt or to a person insisting on the performance -of a contract and not to one who is resisting performance.
Some, stress is laid upon the fact of the payment of $1,(500 from Strube to Boneta in April and July of 1910, but they were not absolutely unconditional payments by Strube; be took negotiable paper in exchange. In the record it does not appear that any payments of interest were made bv Strabo to Boneta after that date, so that with the lapse of time, and given the practice of Boneta of deferring the collections, these payments could be considered by Boneta as properly being payments bn account of the interest or rent for the use and occupation of the land. So could any payment of taxes, the obligation to pay which is not mentioned in the record. Any payment by Strube of taxes could even be considered voluntary and as no part of an agreement between himself and Boneta or, indeed, as I have said, as
Section 1067 of the Civil Code provides that in mutual obligations none of the persons bound shall incur default if the other does not submit or properly fulfil what is incumbent • upon him. 1 do not think there was any fulfilment by Strube up to the date of the suit.
Section 1071 provides that should the obligation not state what conduct is to be observed in its fulfilment, that observed by the good father of a family shall be required. I cannot see that Strube has taken any due steps to demand a specific performance of the contract that he alleged existed. He had his opportunity to buy and his agent, Koester, refused to buy. The attachments against the property still exist. After the death of Boneta Strube still made no attempt to insist on a specific performance, nor did he make any further,attempt to get rid of the attachments. The suit of Krica Schroeder was dismissed about the time of Boneta’s death. The dismissal of this suit and the death of Boneta seemed to have been the things that heartened the two claimants to attempt. to recover the property. Tomás Boneta is dead. In his lifetime lie would have done what he chose' because he was a man of force and an expert in affairs. After a man has .died the courts are slow to, give effect to any alleged
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.