Case Name: Amadeo v. The Registrar of Property
Court: Supreme Court of Puerto Rico
Jurisdiction: Puerto Rico
Decision Date: 1903-01-30
Citations: 3 P.R. 263
Docket Number: No. 1
Parties: Amadeo v. The Registrar of Property.
Judges: Messrs. Associate Justices Hernández, Figueras, Sulzba-cher and MacLeary, concurring.
Reporter: Puerto Rico Reports
Volume: 3
Pages: 263–271

Head Matter:
Amadeo v. The Registrar of Property.
Appeal from a cantionary notice of the Registrar of Property of Ponce.
No. 1.
Decided January 30, 1903.
CONJUGAL PEOHiKTY. — DEFECTS NOT CAPABLE OF CORRECTION. — Alienations, gifts, or encumbrances of real property belonging to the conjugal partnership, made by the husband without the express consent of the wife, are null and void, and therefore contain defects which are not capable of correction.
Contracts affecting real property — Estatuto Real — -Questions relating to the efficacy or nullity of acts and contracts directly effecting real property are regulated by the laws of the country where such real property is situated.
Laws relating to good morals etc. — The provisions contained in Section 1328 of the Civil Code are in the nature of prohibitory laws tending to protect good morals and public order.
Id. — Prohibitory laws relating to persons, their acts or property, and those which relate to public order and to good morals should not be held invalid by reason of laws, decisions, regulations or agreements in force in any foreign country.
STATEMENT OP THE CASE.'
By a deed executed in the City of Ponce, on December 22, 1902, before the Notary, Felipe Casalduc y Goi-coechea of that City, Felipe Pietri y Moretti, a French citizen, born in the Island of Corsica, married, of age, an agriculturist, and domiciled in Adjuntas, transferred to a stock Company known as “Unión Agrícola”, doing business in the aforesaid City, a farm belonging to him called “Hacienda Josefina”, situate in barrios “Garzas” and “Gui-larte”, of the municipality of Adjuntas in this Island, for the sum of twenty thousand dollars, payable as follows: four thousand five hundred dollars in cash; seven thousand four hundred dollars in preferred stocks of said company, and the remaining eight thousand one hundred dollars in shares of the common stock, the vendor thereby becoming a stockholder in said company. Under the fourth article of the deed of conveyance it was set forth,- for the purposes of article 159 of the new Civil Code passed by the Legislative Assembly of this Island on the first of March of the year last past, referring to the alienation of real property belonging to the conjugal community, whereof both parties were notified, that according to the provisions of the French Civil Code, by which the vendor had to be governed in this matter, the latter had charge of the administration of the property belonging to the conjugal partnership without any restriction whatsoever. The aforesaid deed of transfer having been presented at the Registry of Property of Ponce for entry,' the same was refused by the Registrar, according to a memorandum indorsed at the end of the document, which literally copied reads as follows :
“Entry of the above document is refused becairse it appearing therefrom that Felipe Pietri y Moretti is married, the sale has been made without the consent of his wife, as provided by section 1308 of the Civil Code. Instead thereof cautionary notice has been entered of the presentation, to have effect only during four months, on folio 60, volume -45, of Adjuntas, estate No. 2067 (2nd entry) or I should say, Annotation A., Ponce, January 12, 1903.”
Notice of the foregoing memorandum having been served on Lucas Amadeo as agent of the Company “Unión Agrí-cola”, he objected to the Registrar’s action, whereupon the latter forwarded the deed with his report to the Supreme Court for decision, pursuant to Section 2 of an Act of the Legislative Assembly approved on March 1, 1902, providing for appeals from the decisions of. Registrars of Property.

Opinion:
Mr. Chief Justice Quiñones,
after making the above statement of facts, rendered the following opinion of the Court:
According to the section of the new Civil Code cited by the Registrar in his memorandum, and which corresponds to section 1328 of the official edition thereof, notwithstanding the powers which the husband has as administrator of the conjugal partnership, he shall not have the power to give, to alienate or to bind for a consideration the real property of the conjugal partnership without the express consent of the wife; and every alienation or agreement which the husband may make in respect to such property in violation of said section, shall be null and shall not prejudice her interests nor those of her heirs; a provision which is applicable to the deed of sale of real property referred to in the appeal under consideration, said deed having been executed by Felipe Pietri y Moretti on the 22nd of December, 1902, or a long time after the date upon which the aforesaid Civil Code took effect in this Island. The application of the above-, provision in the present case is not affected by the statement made in clause four of the aforesaid deed, with reference to the qualification of the vendor, Felipe Pietri, to execute said deed under the laws of his country, as a French citizen, inasmuch as, according to the principles of private international law, universally recognized in the determination of disputes of this nature, questions relating to the efficacy or nullity of acts and contracts directly affecting real property are regulated by the laws of the "Estatuto real", or the laws of the country where such real property is situated, a principle recognized and sanctioned by the new Civil Code in sections 10 and 1292'thereof, the former prescribing that real property is subject to the laws of the country where it is situated, and the latter, that should the marriage be contracted in a foreign country, between a Porto Rican and a foreign woman, or between a foreigner and a Porto Rican woman, and the contracting parties should not state or stipulate anything with regard to their property, it shall be understood, when the husband is a Porto Rican that he marries under the system of the legal conjugal partnership, and when the wife is a Porto Rican that she marries under the system of laws in force in the the husband's country, "all without prejudice to what is established in said Code with regard to real property". Moreover, inasmuch as aforesaid section 1328 of the new Civil Code is in the nature of a prohibitory law to safeguard good morals and public order, since its object is to protect married women against snch frauds and abuses to the prejudice of their interests as may be committed by their husbands, thereby contributing to maintain peace and morality in the family home, the application of said law cannot be omitted, notwithstanding contrary provisions by other foreign laws, in accordance with section 11 of aforesaid Civil Code, in the last paragraph' whereof it is prescribed that notwithstanding the provisions of said section and of the preceding one, with reference to the application, in a pi'oper case, of the laws regulating the various statutes, prohibitory laws relating to persons, their acts or property, and those which relate to public order and to good morals, shall not be held invalid by reason of laws, decisions, regulations or agreements in force in any foreign country. Although under the first of the temporary provisions of the new Civil Code the changes made therein are not retroactive in their effect, this principle is not applicable to the present case, inasmuch as it is not a question of applying the provision of section 1328 of the new Code to any contract of the same origin, entered into under the former laws, nor of prejudicing any right acquired by the foreigner Pietri under the protection of the civil legislation formerly in force in this Island, but of applying a new precept of the amended Code to-a case which is also new, and comes fully within its provisions, inasmuch as it vras executed long after the aforesaid Code had taken effect. Therefore, inasmuch as the deed of sale of real property executed by Felipe Pietri y Moretti in favor of the stock Company known as "Unión Agrícola", under date of December 22, 1902, contains a defect of nullity 'which is not capable of correction, the same cannot be recorded in the Registry of Property, under the provisions of articles 65 and 66 of the Mortgage Law and 110 of the regulations issued for the execution thereof in this Island.
In view of the legal provisions cited above, the decision of the Registrar of Property of Ponce, entered at the end of the deed referred to in the present appeal refusing the admission thereof to record, is hereby affirmed and it is ordered to be returned to him with a copy of this decision for his information and that of the parties concerned, and for other proper purposes.
Messrs. Associate Justices Hernández, Figueras, Sulzba-cher and MacLeary, concurring.