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PHILIPPINE SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

FIRST DIVISION

[G.R. No. 2886. October 2, 1906. ]

VALENTIN REYES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JUANA TANCHIATCO, ET AL., Defendants-Appellants.

Chicote, Miranda & Sierra, for Appellants.

Arsenio Cruz Herrera, for Appellee.

SYLLABUS


1. CONTRACT, FULFILLMENT OF. — When a contract provides that the plaintiff must cut the bamboo bought by him before a certain day and he fails to cut it all before that day, he has no right thereafter to cut what remains.


D E C I S I O N


WILLARD, J.:


The parties to this action made a contract on the 9th of October, 1902, by the terms of which the defendant sold to the plaintiff "las cañas que contienen las matas o ponos" upon a certain tract of land described in the contract. The plaintiff agreed to pay 500 pesos for the bamboo, 300 pesos of which paid at the time the contract was made, and promised to pay 2000 pesos by the 1st of February following. It was agreed that the should not commence the cutting of last installment he did not pay until the 7th day of April, when it was received by the defendants. He commenced the cutting in the latter part of April or the first part of May and continued it through the succeeding months until the 8th day of August, when the defendants prevented him from cutting any more. The plaintiff testified that act the time he was so prohibited by the defendants he had cut about one-half of the bamboo which he was entitled to cut and he brought this action to recover damages for the interference by the defendants with his right to cut the remaining bamboo. He recovered judgment in the court below and the defendants have brought the case here by bill of exceptions.

The principal dispute between the parties is as to whether the contract fixed any time by which he must finish the cutting. The contract was written in Tagalog and contains a clause, the correct translation of which in Spanish is as follows: "Con la condicion de que el corte de cañas sera desde el 1.
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