Collazo v. Puig & Abraham
Collazo v. Puig & Abraham
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellee prays for the dismissal of this appeal for lack of jurisdiction. It maintains that counsel for both parties have their offices in the city of San Juan, yet the service of notice of appeal was made by mail.
The notice of judgment was served on November 14, 1949 and on the following day the appellants filed the notice of appeal and mailed in the post office of San Juan, in the proper manner, an envelope containing the copy of the notice of appeal addressed to the attorneys of the appellee in San
The proceeding to regulate the appeals is not provided for in the Rules of Civil Procedure. Consequently, the procedure for taking appeals is governed by the provisions of the aforesaid Code among which are the Sections invoked by the appellee. Hernández v. Municipal Court, 69 P.R.R. 827. It is well known that our Code was adopted, to a great extent, from the California Code of Civil Procedure. The Sections dealing on the notice of papers and appearances, that is, §§ 1011, 1012 and 1013 et seq. of the California Code, ’ correspond to §§ 320, 321 and 322 of our Code. When those Sections were adopted by our Code, they had already been construed in California in the sense that in those cases where the notice must be served personally and it is sent by mail and the - party for whom it is intended receives it within the statutory period, it renders the service personal. Heinlen v. Heilbron, 30 Pac. 8 (Cal. 1892) and Shearman v. Jorgensen, 39 Pac. 863 (Cal. 1895). And this is now the prevailing rule in that state. Colyear v. Tobriner, 62 P. 2d 741 (Cal. 1936); Hunstock v. Estate Development Corporation, 138 P. (2d) 1 (Cal. 1943) and Reserve Oil & Gas Co. v. Metzenbaum, 191 P.2d 796 (Cal. 1948). Of course, if service is by mail when, pursuant to § 321, it should be made
For the reasons stated, the motion to dismiss is overruled.
In People v. Carmona, ante, p. 292; Asencio v. Heirs of Rodríguez, 49 P.R.R. 8; Marxuach v. Acosta, 35 P.R.R. 582 and Gascón v. Alvarez, 28 P.R.R. 339, among others, the question herein decided was not raised. Since 1913, when the case of Quintero et al. v. Morales, 19 P.R.R. 1120 was decided, this Court announced in a dictum at page- 1124 how the question would be disposed of if it were shown that the notice sent by mail was received within the statutory period.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.