Garzot v. de Rubio

delivered the opinion of the court.

These several appeals were taken by the various appellants from the same decree. We dispose of them together. The transcript is voluminous and confused. Following the order of the court below and the direction of the counsel for all the appellants, not objected to by the counsel for- the appellee, the transcript contains all the proceedings, all the testimony offered at the hearing, together with-the opinion as well as the elaborate findings of fact and conclusions of law by which the court below disposed of the case. The many assignments of error proceed upon the assumption. that every question arising from the transcript is open for our consideration.

Our power to review is derived from § 35 of the act of April 12, 1900 ( 31 Stat. 85 ), which provides “that writs of error and appeals from the final decisions ... of the District Court of the United States (for Porto Rico) shall be allowed and may be taken to the Supremo Court of the United States in the same manner and under the same regulations . . .as from

the Supreme Courts of the territories of the United States.” Our jurisdiction over causes coming from the Territories generally was thus stated in Idaho & Oregon Land Co. v. Bradley, 132 U. S. 509 , 513:

“Congress has prescribed that the appellate jurisdiction of this court over ‘judgments and' decrees’ of the Territorial courts, ‘ in cases of trial by jury, shall be exercised by writ of error, and in all other cases by appeal;’ and ‘on appeal, instead of the evidence at large, a statement-of the facts of the case in the nature of a special verdict, and also the rulings of the court on the admission or rejection of evidence when excepted to, shall be made and certified by the court below,’ and transmitted to this court with the' transcript of the record. Act of April 7, 1874, c. 80, sec. 2, 18 Stat. 27 , 28.”

"The necessary effect of this enactment.is that no judgment or decree of the highest court of a Territory can be reviewed by this court in matter of fact, but only in matter of law. As observed by Chief Justice Waite: ‘We are not to consider the testimony in any case. Upon a writ of error, we are confined to the bill of exceptions, or questions of law otherwise presented by the record; and upon an appeal, to the statement of facts and rulings certified by the court below. The facts set forth in the statement which must come up with the appeal are conclusive on us.’ Hecht v. Boughton, 105 U. S. 235 , 236.”

While the suggestion that because there is no intermediate reviewing court between this and the District Court of the United States for Porto Rico, differing from what is generally the case in the Territories of the United States, a wider scope of authority should exist in reviewing by appeal the decrees of the District Court of Porto Rico, may have cogency, it affords no ground for disregarding the plain command of the statute of 1874, which is here applicable, as expounded by many previous decisions of this court. It follows, that the greater part of the transcript is superfluous, and we therefore disregard it and confine our attention to such legal questions as necessarily arise on the face of the record, viz., to rulings concerning the rejection or admission of testimony duly excepted to, and to the sufficiency of the findings to sustain the legal conclusion or decree based on them.

The sole complainant, Maria Rios de Rubio, a widow, was averred to be "a resident of San Juan, Porto Rico, and a loyal subject of the King of Spain.” There was no specific traverse of this averment. The court expressly found “that the citizenship and residence of the parties was as alleged in the bill of complaint.” After the findings of fact had been made and the decree entered, and after an appeal by one of the parties, other of the defendants who had initiated appeals, but had not perfected them, moved for an extension of time to perfect

In approaching the merits we put out of view for the moment the many assignments of error which are addressed to rulings of the court admitting or rejecting evidence, and reserve for ulterior determination whether in view of the state of the record such objections are open, and if they are, whether any of them are well taken.

In order to a clear understanding of the origin of the controversy, wo state the facts out of which it arose, confining ourselves to those shown by the pleadings or documents made a part thereof or established by the findings below.

José Maria Rios and Manuela Gutman were married in Porto Rico in 1866. There being no marital contract to the contrary, a legal community of property, as defined in the Spanish law, supervened between the spouses.

The wife at the time of the marriage had eight thousand pesos of separate money and the husband about half that amount. During the. nine years which intervened, between the marriage and September 8, 1875, the husband had become the owner of various pieces of real estate, seven or eight of which were situated in the district of Naguabo, and one, or maybe two or more, in the district of Humacao. On Septem

In November, 1887, José, the son by the first marriage, being yet a minor, died intestate, and his mother, Manuela, instituted in the proper court proceedings concerning' the estate of her deceased son. It may be conceded that the mother, as the immediate ascendant, was the sole heir of the son, to the exclusion of the sisters, the estate taken by her, however, being only usufructuary in character since at her death, as the estate of the son had come to him as part of his paternal inheritance (the succession of his father), it reverted to the sisters, children of the father — because of the principle of the Spanish law which took into account the source whence the estate of the son had been derived, for the purpose of regulating its transmission by death.

In 1890 the daughter Maria married one Rubio, and in l898 Petronila, the other daughter, married one Noyas. In the

In April, 1901, Mr. Cuadra, as the attorney of the daughters Maria and Petronila, and Mr. Landron, as the attorney of the mother Manuela, instituted in the District Court of Humacao a proceeding under the Spanish mortgage law to have the legal title to the property referred to in the agreement put of record. The prayer was that the property referred to in the agreement and thereby transferred to the mother be placed of record in her name as the full owner thereof, and that the property referred to in such agreement, transferred to the two daughters, be placed in their names as the full owners. Conformably to

“ Whereas, in accordance with the provisions of sections 1809 and 1816 of the Civil- Code, a compromise agreed upon and adjusted between capable persons upon a licit matter is not only a valid and efficient contract, but it further has for the contracting parties the authority of res judicata; and .

“Whereas, the. opposition to. proceedings of dominio au

thorized by section 395 of the mortgage law is that of third persons cited for the proceeding and introduction of evidence and in no manner can such opposition be made by any of the parties soliciting the said dominio; and

“Whereas, Dona Manuel Rios, I mean Dona Maria Rios, widow of Rubio, is one of the solicitors of the said proceeding, she has signed the compromise which is the basis for instituting the said proceeding, she has agreed upon the adjudication to each of the interested parties according to the terms of the compromise (clauses 3 and 4) she has accepted as her own the corroborative evidence of the very facts of the compromise and she cannot exercise legally against her own acts such actions as could be exercised by strange persons to the institution of dominio proceedings; and

“Whereas, it is left to the court tp consider the weight of the evidence introduced and the allegations made approving or disapproving the claims made and making the declarations that the dominio has been justified; and

“Whereas, the court after a consideration of the true value and extent of the evidence introduced it is of the opinion that a writ of approval of this proceeding should issue.”

The daughter Maria prosecuted an appeal to the Supreme Court of Porto Rico, sitting as a court of cassation.

We do not refer to many matters discussed at bar concerning the relations between the mother and her daughter Maria which took place pending the appeal, because those subjects are not referred to in the findings. In April, 1902, while the appeal was pending, the mother M.anuela sold the properties which had been transferred to her by virtue of the agreement,, and had been recorded in her name as full owner, to Victor Burset, who had married one of her daughters by the second marriage.. Burset in turn sold the properties tp Palmer, and mortgages wére put upon them. Palmer sold some of the property to Garzot and Fuertes, and a portion of the land was sold by him to Petronila, the sister of Maria. In June, 1902, Mrs. Manuela Gutman died, and in the same month of the

“Considering that even supposing that the construction given by the trial court to article 395 of the mortgage law was erroneous, in holding in one of its conclusions of law that Dona Maria Rios could not oppose the proceeding of dominion because she instituted it in conjunction with her mother Dona Manuela and her sister Dona Petronila, the reversal of the order appealed from would not-be proper, as it would be always sustained by the essential and necessary foundation of the same, which is the declaration made by the District Court of Humacao of having been proven the dominion- of the properties in question, without any limitation or reservation whatsoever, which declaration cannot be discussed in cassation, because' the appeal of cassation was not founded upon paragraph 7 of article 1690 of the Law of Civil Procedure. Considering that the order appealed from conforms to all the claims made by the parties and does not grant more than was prayed for, as it is thereby granted the prayer made by Dona Manuela Gutman' and her daughters Dona Maria and Dona Petronila in the petition instituting the ex parte proceeding of dominion, and the claim made by Dona Maria through her attorney Don Juan F. Vias is denied.”

. Again, we do not stop to consider many matters referred to by counsel which it is deemed conclusively show that .the daughter Maria accepted the decision of the Supreme Court as final, and acted upon the assumption that she was the owner of the property allotted to her by the agreement, because the matters thus relied upon are also but a part of the evidence and not embraced in the findings below made. About one year after the death of the mother and the decision of the Supreme Court of Porto Rico, the bill by which this cause was

The various defendants pleaded res adjudícala, % based upon the decrees of the District and the Supreme Court putting the agreement of record. Petronila, moreover, pleaded a judgment asserted to have been rendered in a proceeding which it was alleged had been brought by the complainant Maria in an insular District Court to set aside the agreement. Although the judgment thus pleaded purported to be annexed to the plea, it wás nqt so annexed, and no reference to such judgment, if any, or to the suit in which it was rendered, is contained in the findings of fact below. The pleas having been overruled, answers were filed traversing all the charges of fraud as to the agreement, as to the proceedings to enforce the same, and as to the sales or contracts concerning the property which that agreement had transferred to the mother.

The court decreed the agreement to be void for fraud. It decided that the judgment of the District Court., affirmed by the Supreme Court, was void for the same reason. It therefore directed the erasure from the public records of the registry of title which had arisen from the inscription of the judgment. The complainant was held to be the perfect owner, not only of an undivided half of the property which had been allotted to the mother by the agreement, and which was described in the bill, but also a like owner of an undivided half of the property whieh the agreement had allotted to her, and it was directed that the judgirjent be inscribed in order to constitute

Before coming to consider such of the assignments of error as are within our cognizance, we are admonished that we must first determine whether the necessary parties are before us to justify us in deciding the case on the merits. And this inquiry also involves determining whether the necessary parties were before the court below to authorize it to make the decree which it entered.

Our duty in the matter was thus stated in Minnesota v. Northern Securities Company, 184 U. S. 199 , 235:

“The established practice of courts of equity to dismiss the plaintiff’s bill, if it appears that to grant the relief prayed for would injuriously affect persons materially interested in the subject-matter who are not made parties to the suit, is founded upon clear reasons, and may be enforced by the court, sua sponte, though not raised by the pleadings or suggested by the counsel. Shields v. Barrow, 17 How. 130 ; Hipp v. Babin, 19 How. 271 , 278; Parker v. Winnipiseogee Lake Cotton and Woolen Co., 2 Black, 545 .”

Again:

“The general rule in equity is that all persons materially interested, either legally or beneficially, in the subject-matter of a suit, are to be made parties to it, so that there may be a complete decree, which shall bind them all. By this means the court is enabled to make a complete decree, between the parties, to prevent future litigation, by taking away the necessity of a multiplicity of suits, and to make it perfectly certain that no injustice is done, either to the parties before it, or to others who are interested in the subject-matter, by a decree which might otherwise be granted upon a partial view only of . the real merits. When all the parties are before the

court the whole case may be seen; but it may not where all the conflicting interests are not brought out upon the pleadings, by the original parties thereto. Story’s Eq. Plds. sec. 72.”

Whether the necessary parties are here or were before the court below involves a consideration of the case in a fourfold aspect: first, as to the agreement; second, as.to the decrees of the District and Súpreme Court; third, as to the contracts' made by the mother or those holding under her in consequence of the agreement and the registry of the title which it created; fourth, as to the nature and character of the rights with which the agreement was’ concerned, and the effect of the relief sought in consequence of the prayer for the annulment of that agreement.

The. agreement was made between the complainant, her sister Petronila and the mother. Now, although the bill was brought after the mother’s death and alleged the existence of’ children of the second marriage, who were, of course, entitled to participate in their mother’s estate, neither the estate of the mother nor such children of the second marriage were made parties to the cause. But either or both the estate and these children were necessary parties to the determination of the rights of the mother under the agreement. It is no answer to say they were not because the property with which the agreement ’was concerned came from the estate of the first husband, in which the mother and her children of the second marriage had no interest, since such an assumption but disregards the natúre and character of the title create*! by the agreement, and therefore presupposes that its validity could be judicially determined in the absence of the parties whose rights were necessarily involved. And this is also true as to the judgments of the District and the Supreme Court of Porto Rico. The mother was not only a party to those judgments but a beneficiary thereof, and the presence of her estate or heirs was essentially necessary to a determination of whether •those judgments were the result of-fraud, and the nature and

“This question must be decided according to the Spanish laws relating to rights which subsist in the marriage state between the parties to the matrimonial contract. By these laws everything purchased during the marriage fell into the common stock of gains, and at the death of either of the parties was to be divided equally between the survivor and the heirs of the deceased. And this effect was produced whether purchases were made with the money or capital of the community or with that of either pf the married parties, whether in the name of both, or that of one of them separately. See Febrero add. part 2, lib. 1, chap. 4, sec. 1, no. 6.”

And the text of the Novísima concerning the presumption was expounded and applied by the Supreme Court of Spain on May 7, 1868, in a case which came before it from Havana. Jurisprudencia Civil, vol. 17, No. 124, pp. 435-439. It is undoubted that all the real estate to which the agreement related was acquired by the husband after the marriage, and therefore was controlled, generally speaking, by the presumption of community. True it is, that the bill, as originally drawn, alleged that some of the property which was transferred to the mother by the agreement was acquired by in

It does not meet this difficulty to suggest that the effect of the agreement was to close the question of community, since the ground upon which the relief was sought was that the agreement was void. Nor is there merit in the suggestion that the presence of the estate of the mother or her heirs was not necessary because the court below found as a fact either that there was no community property, or if there was, that no accounting or liquidation was essential. But these findings could not be made in the absence of the estate of the mother or her heirs without in effect denying a hearing to those vitally interested.

While the considerations previously stated establish the impossibility of affirming, and the necessity for reversing and remanding, they also engender the inquiry whether/ in view of the nature and character of the relief sought by the bill, it is our duty to remand for a new trial, or with directions to dismiss the bill because of an inherent want of jurisdiction to give the relief which the bill sought.

Putting out of view for a moment the averments and prayer of the bill relating to the nullity of the private agreement, and the sales made of the property which was transferred by that

“The succession of the husband, is therefore so far connected with the community as to form together, at the time of his death, an entire mass called his estate, which is not only liable for the payment of the common debts, but also for the portion of the wife or her heirs to the residue, if they have not renounced. The widow or her representatives have consequently such an interest in the mass of the estate or succession of the husband, with regard to whom no distinction is made between his separate property and that of the community until the net proceeds or amount of the acquets and gains are ascertained, that their assistance at the inventory and their concurrence at all the proceedings relative thereto, which are to be carried on contradictorily with them, are generally required. All such proceedings take place before the court of probates who,

according to law, has exclusive jurisdiction of all the matters concerning the estate, particularly in those cases where it is in a course of administration; and it does not occur to us that separate proceedings can properly be had in relation to the community, until after the settlement of the husband’s estate and the payment of the common debts, and division of the residue of the acquets and gains is to be made between the heirs of the deceased and the surviving spouse; and even then the affairs of the husband’s estate, administered under the control and supervision of the court of probates, are to be inquired into and sometimes fully investigated.”

True it is that by article 1046 of the Porto Rican Code of Civil Procedure the parties interested in an estate which is unsettled and under the dominion of the proper court are given power to terminate the estate by a voluntary agreement between them, and that such may have been the effect of the agreement between the parties here in question if the same was valid. But as the bill charged and the relief which it asked was based upon the conception that the agreement .was void, it follows that the relief which the bill sought could' only have proceeded upon the hypothesis that the estate had not been closed, and was yet subject to be administered in the proper court. And that this was the theory of the bill is shown by the prayer that the court appoint a master to liquidate and settle the estates.

Coming to consider the subject from the point of view of the averments as to the nullity of the agreement and the fraudulent simulation of the sales, it is clear that the relief sought, in this regard was merely ancillary to the prayer for the liquidation and settlement of the estates. As we take judicial notice of the fact that the distinctions between law and equity in a technical sense do not obtain in the local law of Porto Rico, and as under that law a court charged with', the administration of a.n estate is one of general as well as probate jurisdiction and has full power over all personal and real actions

“ But it is contended that this would be giving to the court of probates the right of trying questions of title. Probate courts have certainly no power to try titles to real estate, and to decide directly on the validity of such titles; but as this court has said in the case of Gill v. Phillips et al., 6 Martin N. S. 298, ‘ those courts possess all powers necessary to carry their jurisdiction into effect, and when in the exercise of that jurisdiction questions arise collaterally they must, of necessity, decide them, for if they could not no other court could.’ And, ‘any other construction would present a singular species of judicial powrer — the right to decree a partition, without the authority to inquire into the grounds on which it should be ordered, or the portions that each of the parties should take.' The end would thus be conceded without the means.’ Baillo v. Wilson, 5 Martin N. S. 217. We are satisfied that whenever a question of title to real property and slaves arises collaterally in a court of probates, and an examination of it becomes necessary in order to give the court the means of arriving at a correct conclusion on matters of which it has jurisdiction, it must take cognizance of such title at least for the purpose of

The decree is reversed and the case is remanded to the court below, with directions to dismiss the bill for want of jurisdiction over the subject matter.