FIRST
DIVISION
LINO
ALINDOGAN,
ET
AL.,
Petitioners-Appellees,
G.
R.
No. 5188
February
10, 1910
-versus-
THE INSULAR
GOVERNMENT,
Respondent-Appellant.
D E C I S I
O N
JOHNSON,
J:
On the 7th of March 1906,
Lino Alindogan and Lino Alindogan Jac-Teoco petitioned for their
property
as described in the first paragraph of the petition, with a superficial
area of 5,172 square meters.
After the petition
had been presented, the Solicitor-General, representing the Chief of
the
Bureau of Lands, filed the following writing or notice:
"The
Solicitor-General,
representing the Director of Public Lands, appears before the court in
this case and prays that he made a party to any further proceedings and
summoned on behalf of the aforesaid Director of Public Lands. — Manila,
March 30, 1906. — Gregorio Araneta, Solicitor-General."
After hearing the evidence
adduced during the trial of the cause, the lower court rendered the
following
judgment or decree:
"The Court, having
received and being fully informed of everything connected with this
case,
finds that the petitioners have legally acquired their title, and the
absolute
owners in equal parts pro indiviso of the land in question.
"Therefore, the
opposition
of the Director of Land is overruled, and, after a declaration of
general
default, let the adjudication and registry of said land in favor of the
petitioners be decreed, subject to an easement of way acknowledge by
the
petitioners and marked on the plan as a way made by the owners."
To this judgment, the representative
of the Government duly excepted and presented a motion for a new trial
based upon the ground that the evidence adduced during the trial was
insufficient
to justify the conclusion of the lower court; which motion was denied.
The representative of the Government dully excepted to the Court
denying
said motion for a new trial. The cause was subsequently brought to this
Court by bill of exception and the Attorney General made the following
assignment of error:
"The Court of Land
Registration erred in not making any finding of facts in its judgment."
An examination of the judgment
of the lower court shows that he made no finding of facts whatever upon
which he based his conclusion. His failure so to do in direct violation
of the provision of Article 133 of the Code of Procedure in Civil
Action
[Act No. 190].
This Court has
frequently
decided that a failure to make a finding of facts by the lower court,
upon
which he based his conclusion, was reversible error. [See Braga vs.
Millora,
3 Phil. Rep., 458; Enriquez vs. Enriquez, 3 Phil. Rep., 746; City of
Manila
vs. The Insular Government, 9 Phil. Rep., 71].
The argument for the
conclusion of this Court has been fully set out in the foregoing cases.
We deem it unnecessary to repeat it here. It is sufficient to say that
We adhere to the doctrine established in said Decision. In view of the
fact, however, that during the registration of the title in favor of
the
plaintiff, and in view of the facts that the plaintiff were in no way
responsible
for the error complained of here, the cause is hereby remanded to the
lower
court, with direction that a finding of facts be made from the evidence
adduced during the trial. Without the necessity of the presentation of
other or additional proof, and that when the same is done that the be
registered
in accordance with the conclusions in the Decision of the lower court
in
the present cause.
Without any special
findings as to costs, it is so ordered.
Arellano, C.J.,
Torres, Mapa, Moreland, and Elliott, JJ., concur.
Separate
Opinion
CARSON,
J.,
Concurring:
Understanding,
as I
do, that the concluding sentence of the above decision should not and
is
not intended to have the effect of depriving the parties of their right
to appeal from the new judgment to be entered by the Court below,
before
the title to the property in question is registered, I concur. |