Fernández Reyes v. González Betancourt
Fernández Reyes v. González Betancourt
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Pedro Fernández Reyes is the owner of a property of 54 acres (cuerdas) located in the ward of Islote, Arecibo, and hounded on the north by another property of 18 acres,, formerly owned by his sister and now belonging to Ramón González Betancourt, who acquired it a few months ago. On the north of the 18-acre property there is a municipal road (camino vecinal) to which Pedro Fernández Reyes has had access for the past three years through a private road over the 18-acre tract until a short time ago, when the owner of that tract plowed up said private road and planted it with agave {maya) at the boundary line between his property and that of Pedro Fernández.
The above facts were established by Pedro Fernández Reyes in an injunction proceeding to recover the possession of the use of the said, road instituted by him against Ramón González Betancourt as declared by the District Court of Arecibo in denying a nonsuit and as afterwards admitted by the defendant. But on the latter’s evidence, the complaint was dismissed on the ground that the plaintiff relied on a mere verbal permit from his sister, the former owner of the 18-acre tract, for the use of the road and, as such acts were merely tolerated, he could not avail himself of the remedy by injunction to recover possession.
The first ground assigned by Pedro Fernández Reyes for his appeal is that the court below erred in failing to sustain plaintiff’s objection to the examination by the defendant aiming at an investigation of the right of the appellant to use the private road referred to in the complaint.
In injunction proceedings to recover the actual possession lost through the acts of another, which is the equivalent of the interdict to recover possession in our former procedural law, only questions of fact may be alleged, shown, or determined, as for instance, whether the plaintiff within the year next preceding the filing of the complaint had possession of
Actual possession or mere holding may refer to a thing or to the enjoyment of a right, according to section 433 of
In view of the foregoing, the judgment appealed from must be reversed and another rendered sustaining the complaint without any special pronouncement of costs.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
The complaint in this case set up that the complainant was in the material possession and continuous enjoyment of
The use of the word “right” was perhaps inadvertently made. Nevertheless, it is clear to my mind that the only right that a person could have in a road of that kind is by reason of the existence of a servitude.
The defendant attempted to show that no such servitude existed and the court below permitted such evidence. This court reversed the judgment of the lower court on the theory that in a proceeding of injunction to recover possession the only thing that could be discussed was the possession as a matter of fact; that questions relating to the right or title with which one possessed were not proper in such proceeding.
The decisions of this court heretofore merely held that in cases to recover the possession of land it was sufficient to prove the possession of the land itself, and all questions of title were necessarily to be deferred. Perhaps the underlying reason was that in suits to recover the possession of a thing or property wrested from one, the mere- possession creates a presumption of title and one needs go no further. In such cases the courts leave the parties to a subsequent discussion of the title. The possession and the title are separable concepts and the possession may be independently proved. I maintain that there is no such separable concept when one speaks of a servitude.
A servitude is defined by section 536 of the Civil Code as follows:
“A servitude is a charge imposed upon an immovable for the benefit of another tenement belonging to a different owner.”
Hence necessarily a servitude, called under the English Law án incorporeal hereditament, is an intangible thing. While
Section 433 of the Civil Code provides:
“Natural possession is the holding of a thing or the enjoyment of a right by any person. Civil possession is the same holding or enjoyment joined to the intent of holding the thing or right as one’s own. ’ ’
Thus defined, throughout the whole section the Legislature has spoken of the possession of a thing or the enjoyment of a right, an exhaustive division. When one comes to file an interdict to recover the possession of a thing, a piece of land for example, the existence of that land must be proved, or else there is no proof of possession. Similarly, to prove the possession of a right the latter must be shown. It is idle to speak of having possession of a right without showing the existence of that right. There must be a possession of something. And I may repeat that possession is defined by section 433, supra, as either the possession of a thing or of a right. A servitude is necessarily only a right or, as defined by the code, the enjoyment of a right. Therefore, no matter how difficult it may be, a complainant must show the existence of the res the possession of which he claims. When we speak of the possession of land the res is the land; when we speak of the possession of a right the res then is the right itself.
The right to use the inderdict to recover the use of a servitude was challenged. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court of Spain in two decisions cited in the majority opinion held that the writ was available to prevent the disturbance of a right of servitude. In case No. 349, decided December 31, 1879, vol. 42, p. 523, the court considered that certain objections were unfounded “porque bajo el nombre de posesión se entiende comprendida la cuasi posesión para los efectos de esta clase de interdictos, en los cuales se resuelve una
In the majority opinion, in referring to section 433 of the Civil Code, the Court says that the possession or tenancy of the use of a servitude might be the object of an injunction to recover the possession. In this phrase the court speaks of a word that does not appear in the said Code, namely, the word “use”. I maintain that there is no such thing as the possession of the use of a servitude as distinguished from the possession of the servitude. The idea of the Supreme Court of Spain was to protect the dominant tenement and enable the owner thereof to preserve or restore his right of servitude in case it had been interfered with. In the case of land, as I have pointed out, the possession may be readily proved. In the realm of servitude such possession is impossible of proof without establishing the existence of a right.
Section 433, supra, is the first of a series of sections under Title V, Chapter I, of the Civil Code, relating to possession. A number of those articles I think support the conclusions at which I have arrived, and especially section 439, which reads as follows: “Only things and rights suscep-
Therefore, it seems to me that the conrt below was justified in admitting evidence that the plaintiff was on the property of the defendant by mere tolerance.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.