1. EXECUTORS AND ADMINISTRATORS; ALLOWANCE OF CLAIM BY COMMITTEE; APPEAL BY ADMINISTRATOR; ABANDONMENT OF CLAIM BY CREDITOR. — When the claim of a creditor is allowed by the committee on claims in the estate of a deceased person and the administrator appeals therefrom to the court, it is incumbent upon the creditor to institute, in the court having jurisdiction over the intestacy, an original action against the administrator; and if the creditor fails for an unreasonable period of time to institute such action, his claim will be treated as abandoned. In the case at bar a delay of several years in the institution of such action was held to be fatal to the claim.

2. ID.; ID.; ID.; FILING FEE. — When an administrator appeals from the action of the committee on claims in allowing a claim against the estate of a deceased person, the creditor, upon instituting an action in the court having jurisdiction over the intestacy, must pay the filing fee of P16 imposed by section 788 of the Code of Civil Procedure. In such case it is not incumbent upon the administrator to pay such fee, which is a tax, not upon the right of appeal, but upon the act of filing the complaint.

Many years ago the appellee, Ramon Cuadra, was appointed, in the Court of First Instance of Oriental Negros, as the administrator of the estate of one Juan Furbeyre, deceased; and in due course of time a committee was appointed to pass upon claims that might be presented against the estate. Among the claims presented to the committee was a claim of Canuto Villamil, the present appellant, in the amount of P7,000. In the appealed decision it is stated that Villamil’s claim was approved by the committee. From the allowance of this claim the administrator appealed to the court on October 31, 1923. After the claim above-mentioned had been approved by the committee and reported to the court, as aforesaid, the committee presented an additional report, as aforesaid, the committee presented an additional report, reducing the claim of Villamil to P6,200. But this supplemental report was rejected by the court, on the ground that it had been presented out of time.

It is established doctrine in this jurisdiction that when an appeal is taken from the report of the committee on claims, it is incumbent upon the creditor prosecuting the claim to institute an action in ordinary from against the estate of the debtor (sec. 776, Code of Civil Procedure; Zaragoza v. Estate of De Viademonte, 10 Phil., 23; Escuin v. Escuin, 11 Phil., 332), and the claim is there prosecuted in the same manner, and subject to the same incidents, as an ordinary action (In re Estate of Santos, 18 Phil., 403).

Under section 775 of the Code of Civil Procedure the appeal in such case is prosecuted by filing with the clerk of the Court of First Instance having jurisdiction of the intestacy, within twenty-five days after the committee’s report is filed therein, a statement that the person so appealing is dissatisfied with the action of the committee in respect to the claim in question and appeals therefrom to the court. Neither section 775 nor section 776 of the Code of Civil Procedure, dealing with this matter, specifies the time within which the creditor shall file his complaint. It is only said, in section 776, that "the disputed claim shall stand for trial in the same manner as any other action in the Court of First Instance, the creditor being deemed to be the plaintiff, and the estate the defendant, and pleadings as in other actions shall be filed." It is obvious from this provision that it is the duty of the creditor to file his complaint promptly, or at least within a reasonable time. In the case before us the creditor has never at any time filed a complaint against the administrator for the purpose of enforcing his claim. The excuse for this delay will be mentioned further on.

It appears that prior to April 30, 1925, the administrator moved the court to declare the administration closed, alleging that most of the approved claims had been paid but making no mention of Villamil’s claim. Upon considering this motion the court found that the estate was indebted to two entities only, namely, the Pacific Commercial Co. in the amount of P2,000, and Yap Tian Lay in the amount of P600. The court accordingly ordered that the administration be closed. Nevertheless, on November 7, 1925, the order closing the administration was set aside and the court directed the administrator to proceed to the sale of sufficient property belonging to the estate to pay the pending claims and obligations. However, on October 18, 1928, the administrator again presented a motion stating that only two claims against the estate remained unpaid (again making no mention of the claim of Villamil), and requesting that the administration be closed. But on March 12, 1929, Villamil appeared in court by attorney and signified his opposition to the closing of the estate, asserting that his claim in the amount of P7,000 had not been paid, also requesting that the motion of the administrator for the closure of the estate should be denied and that the administrator should be required to pay to the claimant the amount adjudged to him by the committee on claims.

On July 11, 1929, his Honor, Judge Eulalio Garcia, having under consideration the motion thus interposed by Villamil, decided that, under the circumstances above narrated, the creditor Villamil had abandoned his claim and had by laches lost his right to prosecute his claim against the estate.

The foregoing facts are the only facts of record which we consider really pertinent to the case, though it may be stated that after the administrator had appealed from the action of the committee in allowing Villamil’s claim, his then attorneys attempted more than once, by motion, to obtain an order dismissing the appeal. But in the end the court declared that the appeal had been properly taken.

We now come to the point relied upon by the appellant as the justification for his failure to file his complaint on the claim in the Court of First Instance, which is, that it was incumbent upon the administrator, as appellant, first to pay the filing fee of P16 incident to the commencement of an action on the claim in the Court of First Instance. In other words, the appellant supposes that the fee referred to is a tax imposed upon the right of appeal. This point of view is obviously mistaken. The fee in question is that imposed in section 788 of the Code of Civil Procedure for the filing of the complaint in the Court of First Instance. The payment of this tax is therefore an incident of an act which is incumbent upon the creditor; and by not paying the tax and commencing the action in proper form, the creditor himself and not the administrator was the person in default. The action of the administrator in appealing from the allowance of the claim by the committee on claims had the effect of depriving the committee’s action of its legal effects and the only way in which the creditor could render his claim effective, in view of the appeal, was to prosecute with success an action before the court. Having failed to take the steps necessary to this end the creditor must be considered to have abandoned the claim; and the trial judge committed no error in holding that the claim is now unenforceable.

It will be observed that the point here decided was determined in principle in the case of In re Estate of Santos (18 Phil., 403), where this court held that it is the creditor who must pay the tax incident to the institution of an action in the Court of First Instance upon an appealed claim; and although in the case referred to it was the creditor himself who had appealed from the action of the committee, while in the case before us it was the administrator who appealed, this point is of no importance. It is the creditor who must begin the action, and it is he who must pay the tax.

It is the policy of the law to encourage speedy action in the administration of the estates of deceased persons, though it must be admitted that in the multitudinous incidents of such process it too often happens that the period of administration is unduly prolonged. It is not incumbent upon us in this case to indicate precisely what is the limit of time within which the creditor must commence his action after the administrator has appealed from an allowance of the claim by the committee. It is enough to declare that under the circumstances of this case the failure of the creditor to begin action during a period of some five or six years subsequent to the taking of the appeal by the administrator is an unreasonable delay, the effect of which is to operate as an abandonment of the claim.

It results that the judgment appealed from must be affirmed, and it is so ordered, with costs against the Appellant.

Avanceña, C.J., Johnson, Malcolm, Villamor, Ostrand, Romualdez and Villa-Real, JJ., concur.



JOHNS, J., dissenting:chanrob1es virtual 1aw library

Although standing alone, we boldly assert that there is no legal principle upon which the majority opinion can be sustained, and that it violates all of the elementary law on appeal.

It is admitted that Canuto Villamil presented a claim for P7,000 against the estate of the deceased Juan Furbeyre which the committee on claims, after due examination, allowed September 17, 1923. That on October 29, 1923, the committee filed an additional report reducing the amount of the claim to P6,200, which was rejected by the court, for the reason that it was not filed within the prescribed time. October 31, 1923, the administrator of the estate filed a notice of appeal from the allowance of the claim made by the court. It is admitted that the filing fees of P16 were never paid, and that the case was never called for trial by either the administrator or creditor. It is also conceded that in 1924 and 1925, the creditor filed several motions designed to defeat the appeal of the administrator, all of which were denied.

The question is thus squarely presented as to whose duty it was to prosecute the appeal of the administrator.

It must be conceded that in the absence of an appeal, the allowance of the claim of the creditor by the committee on claims is valid and binding. It is elementary law that on an appeal, the appellant is the moving party, and that he appeals for the purpose of being relieved from a decision against him. In the instant case, there is no claim or pretense that the case was ever tried on appeal, or that the decision of the committee on claims has ever been reversed or set aside by order of any court. In this situation, to reverse the decision of the committee on claims, it devolved upon the administrator to prosecute his appeal and to have the case set down for trial and tried by the court, for the purpose of having the judgment of the committee on claims reversed.

I have yet to learn that, where an appellant gives notice of an appeal, it is the duty of the appellee to pay the filing fees of the appellant, or that it is duty of the appellee to prosecute the appeal of the appellant. Yet, in legal effect, that is what the majority opinion holds.

This is an estate proceeding, which is sui generis, and in such cases, as shown by numerous decisions of this court, when an appeal is taken by either the administrator or creditor from the allowance or disallowance of a claim by the committee on claims, no formal pleadings of any kind are required. No formal complaint, answer or reply is ever filed. The court tries the case on the creditor’s proof of claim filed with the committee, which is deemed and treated as the complaint, and on the objection to the allowance of the claim, which is deemed and treated as an answer, together with any evidence that either party may offer, to prove their respective contentions. In such an appeal there is no bill of exceptions, and everything is more or less informal with a view of trying and deciding the case on the actual merits.

For the purpose of this dissent, I will assume that the appeal was taken and perfected even though the filing fees were never paid. In that situation the appeal of the administrator should have been dismissed.

I boldly assert that after the appeal was taken and perfected, the duty to prosecute the appeal and to have the case set down for trial, heard, and decided on its merits devolved upon the appellant and not the appellee. In such a case, it is the appellant who see seeks to have the judgment of the committee on claims reversed, and that it is why he appeals. Why should the appellee be required to pay the filing fees to perfect the appeal of the appellant? Why should the appellee be required to prosecute the appeal of the appellant to obtain a reversal of a judgment in favor of the appellee? Why should the appellee be required to pay anything or to do anything to perfect the appeal of the appellant? Why should the appellee be required to ask the court to set down the case for trial on the appeal of the appellant from a judgment in favor of the appellee? Why should the appellee be required to ask the court to try a case on the appeal of the appellant from a judgment in favor of the appellee? In other words, because the appellant gave notice of an appeal, why should the appellee be required to become the moving party on the appeal of the appellant? Why should the appellee be required to file in court a motion for the purpose of reversing the judgment in favor of the appellee? Why should the appellee be required to prosecute the appeal of the appellant? Yet, that is the legal effect of the majority opinion.

The rule in such cases is well stated in Cyc., vol. 2, p. 880, where it is said:jgc:chanrobles.com.ph

"G. Appearance in Appellate Court — 1. Appearance for Hearing. When a case is called, and neither the appellant nor appellee appear, it is usual to dismiss the appeal; and where appellant does not appear the appeal will be dismissed, or, upon motion of appellee, the judgment may be affirmed. Where appellee fails to appear, the hearing will be ex parte."cralaw virtua1aw library

In the old case of Radford v. Craig (5 Cranch [U. S. ], 288), the Supreme Court of the United States said:jgc:chanrobles.com.ph

"No appearance having been entered on the docketed for either party in this cause, no counsel appearing, the court ordered both parties to be called, and neither of them appearing, the court ordered the writ of error to be dismissed."cralaw virtua1aw library

From our point of view, it is a legal joke to require the appellee to pay the filing fees for the appeal of the appellant, or to require the appellee to prosecute the appeal of the Appellant.

For such reasons, I vigorously dissent.