Dimaguila vs. Monteiro CASE DIGEST JUDICIAL ADMISSIONS- EVIDENCE RULE 129 SEC. 4 - G.R. No. 201011, January 27, 2014

 

Dimaguila vs. Monteiro, G.R. No. 201011, January 27, 2014

P: Mendoza

 

FACTS: Spouses Monteiro filed their Complaint for Partition against the Dimaguilas. They prayed for the partition of a residential house and lot. They anchored their claim on a deed of sale executed in their favor by the heirs of Pedro Dimaguila. Dimaguilas alleged that the subject property had long been partitioned equally between her two sons, Perfecto and Vitaliano Dimaguila, through a Deed of Extrajudicial Partition. They claimed that they were the heirs of Vitaliano and that Spouses Monteiro had nothing to do with the property as they were not heirs of either Perfecto or Vitaliano.

Spouses Monteiro amended their complaint and instead sought the recovery of possession of the portion sold to the couple by the heirs of Pedro. In amending their complaint, Spouses Montiero adopted the Dimaguilas' admission in their original answer that the subject property had already been partitioned.

RTC ruled in favor of Spouses Monteiro and ordered the Dimaguilas to turn over the possession of the 1/3 portion of property. The manner of partition was admitted by the Dimaguilas themselves in their original answer. It gave no credence to the claim that such admission was an error of their former counsel and that she was unaware of the contents of their original answer. Thus, there was indeed a partition of the subject property that the Dimaguilas were estopped from denying the same. CA affirmed.

ISSUE: Whether or not the Dimaguilas were estopped from denying their admission of partition after the Spouses Monteiro had relied on their judicial admission

HELD: Yes. Sec 4 of Rule 129 of the Rules of Court provides that an admission made by a party in the course of the proceedings in the same case does not require proof, and may be contradicted only by showing that it was made through palpable mistake.

Art. 1431 of the Civil Code provides that through estoppel, an admission is rendered conclusive upon the person making it, and cannot be denied or disproved as against the person relying thereon. Spouses Monteiro had clearly relied on the Dimaguila’s admission and so amended their original complaint for partition to one for recovery of possession of a portion of the property. Thus, the Dimaguilas are now estopped from denying or attempting to prove that there was no partition of the property.

Considering that an admission does not require proof, the admission of the Dimaguilas would actually be sufficient to prove the partition even without the documents presented by the spouses. If anything, the additional evidence they presented only served to corroborate the Dimaguila’s admission.

Even granting that the Dimaguilas had not admitted the partition, they presented no evidence to contradict the evidence of the spouses. Thus, even without the admission, the spouses proved by a preponderance of evidence that there had indeed been a partition of the subject property. CA is affirmed with modification of monthly rent until the property is vacated.