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PHILIPPINE SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

EN BANC

[G.R. No. 1056. May 16, 1903. ]

AGUEDA BENEDICTO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ESTEBAN LA RAMA, Defendant-Appellant.

Jovito Yusay and Ledesma & Sumulong for Appellant.

Aylett R. Cotton and Lionel D. Hargis for Appellee.

SYLLABUS


1. SUPERSEDEAS; DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS; ALIMONY. — The filing of bill of exceptions in proceedings for divorce suspends the judgment appealed from and stays the order for alimony therein contained unless the latter is excepted from the stay of execution by the trial court.

2. ID.; ID.; ID. — The Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to award alimony pending the determination of an appeal from a judgment in divorce proceedings.


D E C I S I O N


LADD, J.:


Under section 141 of the Code of Civil Procedure the filing of a bill of exceptions operates as a stay of execution. In this case, therefore, the order made by the trial court in the judgment for the payment of alimony for the period from the institution of the action to the date of such judgment was suspended by the filing of the defendant’s bill of exceptions. The trial court might undoubtedly, under section 114, have provided that execution should not be stayed as to the order for the payment of alimony, but it did not do so. The whole matter rested in the discretion of the trial court. We have no jurisdiction to take any action in the premises.

Nor have we any jurisdiction to grant alimony pending, the appeal. The trial court might have made an order in such terms as to cover the entire period till final judgment, but did not do so. We can not revise its action, except as far as it is brought before us for revision in the ordinary manner, by bill of exceptions.

The right of a wife to the payment of alimony from her husband stands upon no different footing from any other right created by the law or arising from contract or otherwise, and is to be enforced by appropriate proceedings commenced in the court having original jurisdiction. Our jurisdiction in such cases is appellate merely. (See Reilly v. Keilly, 60 Cal., 621.)

The motion must be denied.

Arellano, C.J., Torres, Willard, Mapa and McDonough, JJ., concur.

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