Cruz v. Díaz Santiago
Cruz v. Díaz Santiago
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
For a period of more than ten years plaintiff Vicencio Cruz had been buying lottery ticket No. 299 from Mrs. Lester, widow of Diez, who is an authorized agent of the Puerto Rico Lottery. Formerly the tickets were divided into sixty fractions and plaintiff used to buy the whole ticket. When the number of fractions of the tickets was increased to eighty, plaintiff continued to buy regularly sixty fractions of the ticket of said number. Mrs. Diez sold the rest of the ticket to other persons. This arrangement was official, since plaintiff had registered said ticket in the Bureau of the Lottery through agent Diez to make sure that he could obtain it in all the drawings.
For the drawing of October 4, 1965, as usual, plaintiff bought the sixty fractions of ticket No. 299 from Mrs. Diez and paid with check No. 228 of September 14,1965. Mrs. Diez sold the remaining twenty pieces to 6 other persons whose names we need not mention here, but which are stated in the opinion of the Superior Court. The number of fractions that each and every one of those persons bought is also stated therein.
Plaintiff filed in the Superior Court a petition for injunction against the Secretary of the Treasury and the Director of the Lottery, requesting that writ of injunction be issued ordering the Chief of the Bureau of the Lottery to refrain from paying the prize corresponding to ticket No. 299 and petitioner alleged that he resorted to the injunction proceeding for lack of any other adequate remedy at law.
Defendants answered the petition denying the essential facts and set up two special defenses. The first one consists in that the writ of injunction does not lie to preclude a public official from complying with an action authorized and ordered by a statute, and the second one consists in that pursuant to § 10 of the Lottery Act petitioner lacks a cause of action because the prizes corresponding to the tickets that are “lost or destroyed, or which are not collected” shall, be for the benefit of the Government.
The Superior Court decided that the writ of injunction did not lie, but based on Rule 70 of the Rules of Civil Pro
Defendants-appellants filed a petition for review of the decision of the Superior Court and argue that the court could not grant the remedy requested because said remedy is aimed at restraining a function provided by law to the Director of the Lottery and, therefore, the writ of injunction cannot be granted.
It is true that injunction cannot be granted “to restrain the application or enforcement of any statute . . . or the performance by a public officer, a public corporation, or a public agency, or by any employee or officer of such
In the function of disposing of the cases as well as in deciding them on the merits, the courts, when it is necessary and equitable to do so, disregard errors in the names or titles of the actions and consider the same as it is proper. Thus, for example, in Núñez v. Benítez, Chancellor, 65 P.R.R. 812 (1946) a petition for mandamus was considered and decided as an action for a declaratory judgment; in Mena v. Llerandi, 70 P.R.R. 163 (1949) a petition for injunction to retain possession was considered and decided as an action of survey; in Rivera v. Chancellor of the University, 73 P.R.R. 361 (1952) a petition for mandamus was considered and decided as a declaratory judgment; in Heirs of Marrero v. Santiago, 74 P.R.R. 763 (1953) a petition for an action of revendication was considered and decided as an action for collection of money.
The cases of In Re Mieres Calimano, Pros. Atty. and Pagán, 76 P.R.R. 656 (1954) and Fuentes v. John Doe, 84 P.R.R. 486 (1962) cited by defendants have no bearing on the case at bar because their facts are different. In Mieres, supra, the owner of the fractions of the ticket lost them and they were found by Pagán, who, upon the ticket winning a prize, collected the same. In view thereof the original owner
In Fuentes, supra, the facts are also different from those in the present case. There, as in Mieres, the ticket was lost and other persons bought fractions of the same from a person who offered them for sale. There we decided, at page 490, following the doctrine that, “the possession, even if it is acquired in good faith, of lost or stolen personal property . . . does not extinguish the right to property.” We also stated therein, at page 494, citing the commentators, that the fact that a lottery ticket is a security to the bearer, is not sufficient to wipe out the irregularities of a vicious acquisitive fashion. It may be seen also that in Fuentes, supra, we protected the legitimate owner of the ticket and did not permit that his right be defeated. Cf. Silva v. Industrial Commission, 91 P.R.R. 865 (1965).
' Invoking the aforementioned § 10 of the Lottery Act, 15 L.P.R.A. § 120, which provides that the prizes corresponding to the tickets that are lost or destroyed or which are not collected within the period fixed by the law shall be for the benefit of the Government, is not successful either in defeating the decision of the trial court and the justice imparted thereby. In this case the ticket in question is neither
The judgment rendered in this case by the Superior Court, San Juan Part, on November 2, 1965 will be affirmed.
Rule No. 1. “These rules . . . shall be construed to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action.”
Rule No. 70. “Any error in the title of the action or in the prayer for relief shall not preclude the court from granting the appropriate remedy in accordance with the pleadings and the evidence.”
Rule No. 71. “Where no specific proceeding has been provided for in these rules, the court may regulate its practice in any manner not inconsistent therewith or with any applicable legal provision.”
There is no problem as to the payment of the portion of the prize corresponding to the remaining twenty pieces because the six persons who bought them are duly identified by their names and also the number of pieces or fractions that each one of these persons bought is known.
The right to collect lottery prizes expires at the end of six months after the corresponding drawing is made. (15 L.P.R.A. § 122.)
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.