Melon v. Entidad Provincia Religiosa

• Decision Date: 16 May 1951
• Docket Number: No. 4505,4506.,4505
• Citation: 189 F.2d 163
• Parties: MELON et al. v. ENTIDAD PROVINCIA RELIGIOSA DE PADRES MERCEDARIOS DE CASTILLA. MELON et al. v. CONGREGACION DE LOS RELIGIOSOS DE NUESTRA SENORA DE LA MERCED et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

189 F.2d 163 (1951)

MELON et al. v. ENTIDAD PROVINCIA RELIGIOSA DE PADRES MERCEDARIOS DE CASTILLA.

MELON et al. v. CONGREGACION DE LOS RELIGIOSOS DE NUESTRA SENORA DE LA MERCED et al.

Nos. 4505, 4506.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

May 16, 1951.

Jose O. Sabater, San Juan, P. R. (Walter L. Newsom, Jr., San Juan, P. R., on brief), for appellants.

Rafael O. Fernandez, San Juan, P. R. (Charles R. Hartzell, San Juan, P. R., on brief), for appellees.

Before MARIS, WOODBURY and HARTIGAN, Circuit Judges.

MARIS, Circuit Judge.

These are appeals by the plaintiffs, Maria de los Angeles Melon and her husband Adolfo Fournier Cuadros, from judgments of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico dismissing their complaints for failure to state causes of action. The complainants seek to have certain deeds under which the defendants hold title to several parcels of real estate in Puerto Rico declared void and to have an accounting of the fruits of the properties. The complaints allege that the execution of the deeds by the former owner Pantaleona Melon Saenz, a resident of Barcelona, Spain, was obtained by fraud, that Pantaleona Melon Saenz by a sacramental will made upon her deathbed in Barcelona and proved after her death in accordance with an ancient law still in force in that city constituted her niece, Maria de los Angeles Melon, one of the plaintiffs, her sole and universal heir, and that Maria as the sole and universal heir of Pantaleona Melon Saenz is the true owner of the Puerto Rican properties in question.

It appears that Pantaleona Melon Saenz, having suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and being in extremis, on July 7, 1937 declared in the presence of witnesses that it was her will that her niece should be her only and universal heir. Pantaleona Melon Saenz died two days later. In accordance with an ancient law or privilege conferred upon citizens of Barcelona by Pedro II in the year 1283¹ the nuncupative will of Pantaleona Melon Saenz was proved in the following manner. On July 11, 1939 pursuant to prior notice and by order of the Court of First Instance No. 1 of Barcelona the judge, the secretary of the court, the fiscal, the witnesses and counsel appeared at the Altar of the Holy Cross, formerly San Felix Martyr, in the ancient Church of Saints Justo and Pastor in Barcelona. Six candles and the Holy Gospel having been placed upon the Consecrated Stone, the court was there convened and the parish priest administered the oath to the two witnesses. The witnesses were then separately examined at the altar and each testified that the decedent, having suffered an attack of hemiplegia but being in their opinion in full possession of her mental faculties, stated her will to them as being the designation of her niece Angeles Melon as her only and universal heir. They also stated that two other persons were present, a female friend of the decedent and her female servant. The two women, however, were not competent witnesses under the local law.

Counsel then requested the reduction to a sacramental testament of the will thus testified to and its protocolization before a notary. The fiscal, however, objected upon the ground that the privilege of establishing and protocolizing a sacramental will is given by the law of Pedro II only to persons domiciled in Barcelona and that it had not been established that the decedent was so domiciled. Thereupon proof was furnished that the decedent had been domiciled in Barcelona for more than ten years before her death. The fiscal then withdrew his objection and the Court of First Instance No. 1 of Barcelona directed that the decedent's will as testified to by the witnesses be reduced to a sacramental testament and that the record thereof be protocolized before a notary, which was done. An authenticated copy of its protocolization is in the record before us.

It is upon the sacramental will thus proved and protocolized in Barcelona that the plaintiffs rely as the basis for their title to the Puerto Rican real estate involved in these suits. The action of the district court in dismissing the complaints was based upon its conclusion that the will was ineffective to pass title to Maria to the Puerto Rican real estate in question and that she and her husband accordingly have no standing to prosecute the suits. The question thus raised and which this court is called upon to decide is whether the law of Puerto Rico will recognize as effective to pass title to real estate situated in Puerto Rico a foreign will the formalities and proof of which do not comply with Puerto Rican law.

That the question involved is the one just stated becomes clear when we recall that under Section 650 of the Civil Code of Puerto Rico, 1930 Ed., a nuncupative will made without the assistance of a notary by a testator in imminent danger of death must be made before five competent witnesses,² whereas in the present case there were only four witnesses present when Pantaleona Melon Saenz stated her will. Moreover under Sections 534 et seq. of the Code of Civil Procedure of Puerto Rico, 1933 Ed., the procedure for reducing a nuncupative will to a public instrument is prescribed. It is also provided that proceedings for that purpose may be instituted in an insular district court. This procedure was, of course, not followed in the case of the nuncupative will of Pantaleona Melon Saenz which was, as we have seen, proved and protocolized in accordance with the ancient law in force in Barcelona.

In support of the plaintiffs' contention that the will must be recognized under the Puerto Rican law as effective to pass title to the Puerto Rican properties they refer to various sections of the Civil Code of Puerto Rico. The sections of the Code which appear to be involved are set out in a footnote.³

The plaintiffs particularly stress the provision contained in Section 11 that the forms and solemnities of wills are governed by the laws of the country in which they are executed. This, they say, establishes for Puerto Rico the conflicts rule that if a will is executed and proved in accordance with the law of the place where it was executed it is to be regarded as valid in Puerto Rico for all purposes, including the disposition of title to Puerto Rican real estate. The defendants on the other hand stress the provision of Section 10 that real property is subject to the laws of the country in which it is situated, as well as the provision of Section 636 that any will shall be void if the formalities prescribed by Chapter 1, Title III, Book III of the Civil Code have not been observed in its execution. The provision of Section 11 that the forms and solemnities of a will are to be governed by the laws of the country in which it is executed and the provisions of Sections 625 and 626 that a will executed in a foreign country is considered special must, the defendants say, be read as relating to Section 666 which specifically authorizes citizens of Puerto Rico to make wills abroad according to the forms established by the laws of the country in which they are sojourning.

The reconciliation of the language of these Code provisions with respect to foreign wills and their proper interpretation presents an interesting problem. But it is a problem the solution of which is peculiarly within the competence of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico.⁴ We accordingly look to the decisions of that court for guidance. Turning to those decisions we find that the Supreme Court has had occasion to consider the precise question of conflict of laws with which we are here confronted. That court has held that under the Civil Code of Puerto Rico, which in this respect departs from the Spanish Civil Code, the rule of lex rei sitae has been adopted to determine not only the validity and effect of the provisions of wills purporting to dispose of real estate in Puerto Rico but also the formalities required in the execution of such wills and the capacity of parties to make them. Colón et al. v. Registrar of Aquadilla, 1915, 22 P.R.R. 344; Bracons v. Registrar of San Juan, 1917, 24 P.R.R. 703; Pastor-Gomila v. Miró-Pastor, 1925, 34 P.R.R. 50.

In the Colón case, the first of the cases just cited, the Supreme Court reviewed the Spanish Civil Code, the report of the ...