Gonzales vs. CFI

Gonzales vs. CFI BEATRIZ GONZALES V. CFI MANILA, 104 SCRA 481 (1981) DOCTRINE: Gonzales gives an extended discussion on the nature and effects of reserva troncal. Among other things, it stresses that the reservable property does not form part of the estate of the reservor, if upon his or her death he or she is survived by qualified reservees. As such, the reservor cannot will or bequeath the reservable property in his or her will, nor can the reservor choose who or discriminate among the reservees should get the property. The reservees inherit the reservable property not from the reservor, but from the prepositus. Thus, Gonzales affirms the ruling in Padura v Baldovino and follows the theory of delayed intestacy in the matter of distributing the reservable property among the reservees. It should be noted that the Court relied heavily on the ruling in Florentino and quotes substantially from the text of the said decision. However, there is a failure to note the oversight committed by the Court when it failed to distinguish between full-blood brothers from half-blood brothers. The opportunity to rectify an error was lost. Benito Legarda Tuason Consuelo Rita +Benito Legarda de la Paz

Filomena Roces Beatriz Rosario Teresa +Filomena Benito Alejandro Jose

Carmen Legarda y Fernandez Ramon Legarda y Hernandez Filomena Legarda y Lobregat Jaime Legarda y Lobregat Celso Legarda y Lobregat Alejandro Legarda y Lobregat Ma. Teresa Legarda y Lobregat Ma. Antonia Legarda y Lobregat Jose Legarda y Lobregat Rosario Legarda y Lobregat Benito Legarda y Lobregat Eduardo Legarda y Lobregat Trinidad Legarda

FACTS: Benito Legarda y dela Paz (Benito II), son of Benito Legarda y Tuazon (Benito I), died and was survived by his widow, Filomena and their 7 children. The real properties left by his deceased father, Benito I, were partitioned in 3 equal parts by Benito II’s sisters and his heirs pro-indiviso. One of his daughters, Filomena, died without issue and her sole heiress was her mother, Filomena vda de Legarda

1. Mrs. Legarda executed an affidavit adjudicating to herself the properties she inherited from her daughter as a result of which she succeeded her deceased owner as co-owner of the properties held pro-indiviso by her other 6 children. Later, Mrs. Legarda executed 2 handwritten documents disposing of the properties which she inherited from her daughter in favor of her 16 grandchildren (the children of her sons). Eventually, Mrs. Legarda and her 6 surviving children partitioned the co-owned property 2. Mrs. Legarda died and in the testate proceeding of her estate, Beatriz Gonzales, one of her daughters, filed a motion to exclude in the inventory of the properties inherited from Filomena, the deceased daughter, on the ground that said properties were reservable and should be inherited by Filomena’s 3 sisters and 3 brothers, not by the 16 grandchildren of Mrs. Legarda, or Filomena’s nephews and nieces. She also filed an action securing a declaration that the properties are reservable which Mrs. Legarda could not bequeath in her holographic will to her grandchildren to the exclusion of her 6 chidlren 3. It is contended here than the properties in question are not reservable properties because only relatives within the third paternal line have survived and that when Mrs. Legarda willed the properties to her grandchildren, who are third degree relatives of Filomena and who belong to the paternal line, the reason for the reserva troncal has been satisfied: “to prevent persons outside a family from securing, by some special accident of life, property that should otherwise have remained therein.” ISSUE: WON the properties could be conveyed by will to the 16 grandchildren (reservees within the third degree) to the exclusion of the 6 children (reservees within the second degree) HELD: No. Mrs. Legarda could not convey in her holographic will to her 16 grandchildren the reservable properties she inherited from her daughter because the reservable properties did not form part of her estate. The reservoir cannot make a disposition mortis causa of the reservable properties as long as the reservees survived the reservoir. Art 891 clearly indicates that the reservable properties should be inherited by all the nearest within the third degree from prepositus who in this case are the 6 children of Mrs. Legarda. She could not select the reservees to whom to the reservable properties should be given and deprive the other reservees of their shares therein. To allow the reservoir to make a testamentary disposition of the reservable properties in favor the reservees in the third degree and, consequently, to ignore the reservees in the second degree would be a glaring violation of Art 891, this cannot be allowed. Mrs. Legarda could not dispose of the properties in question in her will even if the disposition is in favor of relatives within the third degree from Filomena. The said properties, by operation of Art 891, should go to Mrs. Legarda’s 6 children as reservees within the second degree from Filomena. Reservees do not inherit from the reservor but from the prepositus, of whom the reservees are the heirs mortis causa subject to the condition that they must survive the reservor. The reservation could be extinguished only by the absence of reservees at the time of Mrs. Legarda’s death. Since at the time of her death, there were reservees belonging to the second and third degrees, the disputed properties did not lose their reservable character. The disposition of

the properties should be made in accordance with Art 891 and in accordance with the reservor’s holographic will.