Case ID: pr_6/html/0531-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "''Me. Chibe Justice Quiñowes,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Ex Parte Calzada.
    Appeal from the District Court of San Juan.
    No. 68.
    Decided May 12, 1904.
    DomiNion Title — Possession to Acquire the Same — Prescription.—In order to acquire the ownership of real property by ordinary prescription, it is necessary to show the time of possession of the petitioner or that of his predecessors in interest, as well as whether or not he was in posssession under title, and if so, the nature of the same.
    STATEMENT OP THE CASE.
    This is a proceeding instituted in the District Court of San Juan at the instance of Attorney Emigdio S. Ginorio, on behalf of Sergio Calzada Ferrer, for the purpose of establishing the ownership of a rural estate. The case is pending before us on an appeal taken by the petitioner from the judgment rendered by the said district court, which reads as follows:
    “Porto Rico, June 17, 1903. Sergio Calzada Ferrer instituted proceedings to establish the ownership of a rural estate situated in barrio ‘Lomas,’ of Rio Grande, consisting of seventeen cuerdas, with a frame house having a roof of straw, being bounded on the north by lands of Marcelo Mundo and the Canovanillas river, on the south and east by lands of José Albandoz, and on the west by said river, the estate having been acquired by purchase from Tomás del Valle for the sum of two hundred and eighty dollars, without any title having intervened.
    ‘ ‘ The investigation having been allowed, the notices published, and the Fiscal, adjoining property owners, Mundo and Albandoz, and the vendor having been cited, two of the witnesses testified that it is true that the petitioner is the full owner and has been in quiet and peaceable possession, without interruption on the part of any one, of the land described, together with the house, which he acquired from To-más del Valle, without any title having intervened in the purchase.
    ‘£ The probatory period having expired, only the petitioner and the Fiscal were cited, for the reason that no contestant appeared, to a verbal hearing, at which the petitioner alleged such matters as he deemed advisable.
    “Although declarations of ownership for the purposes of admission to record in the Registry of Property, made in proceedings of this nature, do not in any way deserve to be considered as final, inasmuch as another proceeding involving the same subject-matter may be instituted by reason of the record which is ordered, according to a decision of the Supreme Court of April 29, 1887, it is true that the Mortgage Law affords to landowners who have no written title of ownership two different courses, one to establish the possession referred to in articles 390 to 393, which may be converted into records of ownership upon the expiration of the period prescribed by law; and the other the proceedings concerning ownership referred to in article 395.
    ‘ ‘ The lawq in prescribing the rights of landowners in these various articles, does not do so in order that they may elect the same at their caprice, since, on the contrary, the articles relative to the possessory titles and that of the conversion of a possessory title into one of ownership would be superfluous.
    
      “The foregoing statements are proven and demonstrated by the language of article 395 in providing that ownership must be established with the formalities therein prescribed, among others, the legal evidence which may be submitted with respect to the acquisition, subsequently adding that the judge, in classifying said evidence in the exercise of a rational judgment, shall declare whether the ownership of the property in question above set forth, and that the evidence in one pase and the other should not be the same.
    “In view of the result of the evidence set forth in the second finding of fact, which does not even show the duration of the possession as required by article 391 of the Mortgage Law in cases of possessory titles, the declaration of ownership applied for by áergio Calzada Ferrer of the rural estate referred to in the first finding of fact is denied. It was so ordered and signed by the members of the court, to which I certify: Juan Morera Martínez, Frank H, Bichmond. — Luis Mendez Vaz.”
    From this judgment counsel for the petitioner took an appeal, which was admitted for a review and stay of proceedings-, and the record having been forwarded to this court, after citation of the parties, and the appellant having appeared, the appeal was conducted according to the proper procedure and a day set for the hearing, at which no one appeared except the Fiscal of this Supreme Court, who opposed the appeal.
    
      Mr. Ginorio (Emigdio S.), for appellant.
    
      Mr. del Toro, Fiscal, for the People.
   ''Me. Chibe Justice Quiñowes,

after stating the foregoing-facts, delivered the opinion of the court.

The findings of fact contained in the judgment appealed from are accepted.

After considering the evidence offered hy the petitioner, Sergio Calzada Ferrer, and which reduces itself to the testimony of two witnesses who testified in the present proceeding, the declaration of ownership applied for by said Calzada Fe-rrer cannot he made, isasmuch as the witnesses do not show the time of possession of Ithe petitioner, and which he alleges in his petition does not exceed two months, nor the time his predecessor in interest was in possession, nor whether or not he was in possession under title, and if so, of what said title consisted; ■which requisites are necessary to prove the acquisition of the ownership of real property by ordinary prescription, or not less than thirty years.

In view of article 395 of the Mortgage Law in force and the Judicial Order of April 4,1899, we adjudge that we ought to affirm and do affirm the judgment appealed from, in so far as it denies the declaration of ownership applied for by Sergio Calzada Ferrer, he to pay the costs.

Justices Hernández, Figueras, Sulzbacher and MacLeary concurred.