Santos v. Lumbao Digest

Santos vs Lumbao

Facts:

1. Respondent spouses Lumbao filed an action for reconveyance with damages against petitioners. Petitioners are survivors and legitimate heirs of Rita Santos who allegedly sold 2 parcels of land to respondents when she was alive by virtue of a document called ‘bilihan ng lupa’, The repsondents even claimed that the execution of the document was signed and witnessed by petitioners Virgilio and Tadeo.

2. After having acquired the subject property, respondents Spouses Lumbao took actual possession and built a house which they occupied as exclusive owners up to the present. The respondents Spouses Lumbao made several verbal demands upon Rita, during her lifetime, and thereafter upon herein petitioners, to execute the necessary documents to effect the issuance of a separate title in their  favor. 

3. Respondents Spouses Lumbao alleged that prior to her death, Rita informed respondent Proserfina Lumbao she could not deliver the title to the subject property because the entire property inherited by her and her co-heirs from Maria had not yet been partitioned. 

4. Finally, the respondents Lumbao claimed that petitioners, acting fraudulently and in conspiracy with one another, executed a Deed of Extrajudicial Settlement, adjudicating and partitioning among themselves and the other heirs, the estate left by Maria, which included the lot already sold to  them. Due to refusal of petitioners to convey the said propert, the spouses filed the action.

5. The lower court (RTC) dismissed the complaint of ground  of lack of cause of action as the spouses allegedly did not comply with the required barangay conciliation. The CA granted and ordered the petititoners  to convey the land to the spouses, hence this petition.

Issue: Whether or not the admissions made are admissible and binding

YES. As a general rule, facts alleged in a party’s pleading are deemed admissions of that party and are binding upon him, but this is not an absolute and inflexible rule.

1. An answer is a mere statement of fact which the party filing it expects to prove, but it is not evidence. And in spite of the presence of judicial admissions in a party’s pleading, the trial court is still given leeway to consider other evidence presented.However, in the case at bar, petitioners had not adduced any other evidence to override the admission made in their answer that Virgilio and Tadeo actually signed the [Bilihan ng Lupa. Hence, the general rule that the admissions made by a party in a pleading are binding and conclusive upon him applies in this case.

2. In the "Bilihan ng Lupa," dated 17 August 1979, the signatures of petitioners Virgilio and Tadeo appeared thereon. Moreover, in petitioners’ Answer and Amended Answer to the Complaint for Reconveyance with Damages, both petitioners Virgilio and Tadeo made an admission that indeed they acted as witnesses in the execution of the "Bilihan ng Lupa," dated 17 August 1979. However, in order to avoid their obligations in the said "Bilihan ng Lupa," petitioner Virgilio, in his cross-examination, denied having knowledge of the sale transaction and claimed that he could not remember the same as well as his appearance before the notary public due to the length of time that had passed.