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Concepcion Vs Sta. Ana
Concepcion Vs Sta. Ana
787)
G.R. No. L-2277 December 29, 1950
MONICOCONCEPCION, plaintiff-appellant,
vs.
FACTS
An action was instituted by Monico Concepcion vs. Paciencia Sta. Ana to annul the sale
made by the late Perpetua Concepcion, sister of the plaintiff, of three parcels of land
with the improvements thereon to the defendant. The complaint alleges that Perpetua
Concepcion, in connivance with the defendant and with intent to defraud the plaintiff,
sold and conveyed three parcels of land for a false and fictitious consideration to the
defendant, who secured transfer certificates of title of said lands issued under her
name; and that the defendant has been in possession of the properties sold since the
death of Perpetua Concepcion, thereby causing damages to the plaintiff in the amount
of not less than two hundred (P200) pesos.
ISSUE
Whether or not Perpetua Concepcion has transmitted to the plaintiff any right arising
from the contract under consideration in order that he can bring an action to annul the
sale voluntarily made by her to the defendant with a false consideration.
HELD
In support of his contention that the contract of sale under consideration being a
fictitious contract or contract with a false consideration is null per se or non-existent,
plaintiff quotes Manresa’s comment on article 1274 to 1277, Vol. 8, p. 623, which says:
“Recognizing this analogy, it was held by the Supreme Court of Spain that a fictitious
contract, or contract entered into with false consideration does not confer any right or
produce any legal effect, citing the judgments of the Supreme Court of Spain of October
31, 1865, of March 21, 1884, and of November 23, 1877.” Appellant’s conclusion is not
correct. By stating that contracts with false consideration confer no right and produce no
legal effect, Manresa does not mean to say that they are null and void per se or non-
existent as contradistinguished from annullable, for the effects of both non-existent and
annullable contracts that have been annulled are the same: they confer no right and
produce no legal effect. What Manresa says on page 700 of the same volume,
commenting on article 1301, is the following: “The expression of a false cause or
consideration in the contract does not make it non-existent, and it shall only be a ground
for an action for nullity as provided by article 1276 and confirmed by article 1301 of the
Civil Code. There are some who consider this somewhat confused under the Code; for
us it is very clear, for the code repeatedly provides that the effect of a false
consideration is limited to making the contract voidable, and we have already pointed
out that in this particular, our Civil Code has deviated deliberately from the French
Code, which includes indistinctly in one and the same provision contracts without
consideration and contracts in which the consideration is illicit or false.”
We are of the opinion and so hold, that the late Perpetua Concepcion has not
transmitted to the plaintiff any right arising from the contract of conveyance or sale of
her lands to the defendant, and therefore the plaintiff cannot file an action to annul such
contract as representative of the deceased.
Therefore, as the plaintiff in the present case, not being a forced heir of the late
Perpetua Concepcion, cannot institute an action to annul under article 1300 or to
rescind under article 1291 (3) of the Civil Code the contract under consideration entered
into by the deceased with the defendant.
In view of the foregoing, the judgment of the lower court is affirmed with costs against
the appellant. So ordered.