Vázquez Sebas v. Dimas Riera
Vázquez Sebas v. Dimas Riera
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
On January 28, 1933, José L. Soto, Marshal of the Municipal Court of San Juan, Second Section, with the aid of some men, took apart and razed to the ground a wooden house located at No. 40 Pelayo Street, now Nolasco Rubio, in the Ward of Puerta de Tierra. This drastic action was taken under authority of an order of execution issued by the clerk of the said court on December 20, 1932, pursuant to a judgment in unlawful detainer of March 23, 1932, rendered in favor "of Eulogio Dimas and Josefina Dolores Riera and Ben-goecliea and their mother Josefina B. Macias, widow of Riera, against Ramón Eehavarry and Francisca Alfonso Marrero, intervener. The judgment above referred to was rendered in case No. 12,180 of the municipal court. We shall hereafter refer to the plaintiffs in that case, as the “Rieras.”
As a result of the demolition of the house mentioned, Rafael Vázquez Sebas brought suit against the Rieras for
Defendants’ answer denied plaintiffs’ title to the house and pleaded affirmatively that the sale from Francisca Alfonso Marrero to Rafael Vázquez Sebas was simulated and effected for the fraudulent purpose of defeating the execution of the judgment obtained by the defendants in suit No. 12,180, supra. The second paragraph attempts to deny the alleged value of the house and denies the existence of any rental income therefrom. The defendants set up the legality and regularity of the proceeding by which the house was destroyed.
On October 2, 1934, Rafael Vázquez Sebas was duly substituted as party plaintiff by his heirs, Rafael Teodoro, Juana María and Julia Lucía Cristina Vázquez Anqueira. They are the present appellants.
The District Court of San Juan rendered judgment in favor of the defendants without costs. It is from that judgment that the appeal has been taken, and five errors are assigned.
We are primarily concerned, with determining whether Rafael Vázquez Sebas obtained a bona fide title to the house
For whatever ultimate importance it may have, it is well to review all the litigation which preceded this case. The complaint in the unlawful detainer suit was filed on January li, 1932. On the 25th of that same month, Francisca Alfonso Marrero filed a complaint in intervention in the above suit in which she claimed the title to the house on the plaintiffs’ lot. The Municipal Court of San Juan, on March 23, 1932, rendered judgment for the plaintiffs, dismissed the complaint in intervention, and ordered the clerk of court to issue a mandate to the marshal in order that, if the defendants do not proceed to vacate the lot and remove the house therefrom, he (the marshal) should oust the defendant, Ramón Echavarry and the intervener, Francisca Alfonso Marrero, if the latter should be on the lot, and vacate the lot, removing the house which may be on it. The defendants appealed from that judgment, and the appeal was dismissed by the District Court on April- 30, 1932. Certiorari to the municipal court was likewise denied by the district court in the same date. The intervener, Francisca Alfonso Marrero, appealed to this court from the denial of the certiorari and this appeal was dismissed by us on May 16, 1932. In the meantime, the inter-vener had obtained a favorable judgment with regard to her title to the house, in an independent suit filed by her against the .Rieras for that purpose. It does not appear that the title to the house was ever recorded.
From the above history of events, we may conclude that the Rieras were clearly the owners of the lot on which Francisca Alfonso Marrero’s house stood; that they proved their right to the ouster of the occupants of the house and to the removal of the house itself from their lot, and that a judgment to this effect had become unappealable as early as May 16, 1932.
"... the Court orders the Secretary to issue a writ to the marshal so that he may proceed to the immediate ouster of the 'defendants and of all those persons who in their name, may be occupying said lot or who may be holding it under a right derived from these defendants.”
We have no doubt that the instructions given to the marshal by the clerk pursuant to the above order, were entirely authorized by the judgment. We must not forget that the express terms of the original judgment of March 23, 1932, sanctioned the removal of the house.
The lower court «based its opinion almost entirely on the simulated nature of the sale of December 13, supra. To arrive at that conclusion the court relied on our jurisprudence in the cases of Santini Fertilizer v. Burgos, 34 P.R.R. 830; Lebrón v. F. Fresno & Co. et al., 39 P.R.R. 814, and others which have followed. Although the cases refer to transfers in fraud of creditors, their ratio decidendi is applicable to the case before us. After all, the Bieras had acquired a right to the removal of the house from the lot. There are badges of fraud throughout. It is remarkable that the notice of the sale should have been given on the same day that execution of the judgment in unlawful detainer had issued.
The contention of the appellants to the effect that the court could not annul the deed of sale without a special complaint or proceeding, etc., is untenable in the face of the doctrine that the absolute nullity of a transaction can always be raised, if its validity is relied upon for the acquisition of rights, and that it can be done collaterally or directly.
We have another idea with regard to this case which may be applicable. Should a plaintiff who has obtained an unappealable judgment in an unlawful detainer suit and is about to put into effect a writ of execution which permits him to destroy a house built by a third person on the premises, when the title to the house is not recorded, be affected in his proceedings by the fact that some one notifies him that he has bought the house? The purchaser knew that the house was on land which did not belong to his vendor. The
A judgment debtor, or a defendant against whom final judgment has been rendered which directly affects some specific property, can dispose of that property to a third person but that third person takes the property subject to the obligations under the judgment. A sale after judgment should not make the purchaser a party defendant.
For the above reasons we are of the opinion that Rafael Vázquez Sebas never acquired any right against the Rieras and that any damages he may have suffered were the com-' bined result of his own action in acquiring a house situated on a third person’s lot and of the undisclosed position of his own vendor.
The judgment appealed from should be affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.