Marina Villalobos v. Suárez y Suárez
Marina Villalobos v. Suárez y Suárez
Opinion of the Court
delivered tlie opinion of the court.
The plaintiff took this appeal from a judgment dismissing his complaint on the merits.
José María Marina Sánchez died in 1896, leaving a will in which he devised to his son, Manuel, the disposable portion of his estate, to’a daughter the betterment portion, and he constituted as his heirs to the remaining third, the five children he had in his marriage with Antonia Villalobos. Community property was left at his death, including three rural properties: One measuring 20 cio&rdas of land, another 61, and still another 8, which were recorded in the registry of property the same year, in the name of his heirs in common (promdiviso) it being set forth in the records pertaining to those properties that to the son Manuel belonged, by legacy, the disposable third of half of the properties, in addition to his rights as heir.
José María Marina Villalobos, one of the sons who had . only a share in a third as heir, sold to his mother, Antonia Villalobos, in the year 1898, his hereditary share in those three properties and in others, and also the disposable third of the one-half share which had been bequeathed to his
All the facts above stated are set forth in the registry of property.
Becently, Manuel Marina Villalobos brought suit, with the result we mentioned at the beginning, against Marcial Suárez y Suárez to annul the deed of sale which José María Marina executed in favor of his mother in 1898, in so far as it refers to the third of one-half of the properties, and similarly all subsequent sales, including that made to the defendant; to cancel the registration of those titles in the registry of property; to declare that the one-third share belonged to the plaintiff; to have the defendant deliver it to him, and in default thereof, a certain sum of money; and to adjudge the defendant to pay to him, as usufruct, another sum in cash. The ground for the relief sought was that the said one-third share belonged to the plaintiff, and hence his brother José María could not alienate it.
It is true that José María Marina Villalobos was not the owner of the undivided third of one-half of the properties
The appellant says that the registrar had no authority to make the correction that he did, but, even so, we do not se«j how a correction in his favor can injure him.
The appellant also urges that the lower court disregarded the testimony of the plaintiff according to which he did not know until 1913 that he was the owner of the third involved in this suit. From the registry of property, the entries in which are public, it appears that his right to that third was recorded in his name in the year his father died, for which reason such knowledge is more important than that which he stated in his testimony.
The judgment appealed from must be affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.