Severo Ochoa v. Ana Maria Hernandez Morales

• Decision Date: 16 June 1913
• Docket Number: No. 92,92
• Parties: SEVERO OCHOA, Victor Ochoa, Jose Ochoa, and Angel Gonzales, Partners, Doing Business under the Firm Name and Style of J. Ochoa y Hermano, Appts., v. ANA MARIA HERNANDEZ Y MORALES and Eufemio Hernandez y Morales
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

230 U.S. 139

33 S.Ct. 1033

57 L.Ed. 1427

SEVERO OCHOA, Victor Ochoa, Jose Ochoa, and Angel Gonzales, Partners, Doing Business under the Firm Name and Style of J. Ochoa y Hermano, Appts.,

v ANA MARIA HERNANDEZ Y MORALES and Eufemio Hernandez y Morales.

No. 92.

Submitted December 17, 1912.

Decided June 16, 1913.

Mr. T. D. Mott, Jr., for appellants.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 140-143 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Hector H. Scoville and Joseph Anderson, Jr., for appellees.

Mr. justice Pitney delivered the opinion of the court:

This was a suit in equity to establish the right of the complainants (appellees) to a parcel of land containing 106 acres, situate in the Barrio Nuevo, in the Jurisdiction of Naranjito, in the Island of Porto Rico, found to exceed in value the sum of $5,000. The district court decreed that the complainants were the legal owners of this land by inheritance, and entitled to the possession of it as against the appellants, a firm doing business under the name of J. Ochoa y Hermano; that the firm should deliver possession to the appellees; that all entries in the registry of property, of dominio and posesorio title by or in favor of that firm, and all other entries of either kind of title as against the appellees, should be canceled, etc. 5 Porto Rico Fed. Rep. 463. Defendants appealed to this court.

At the time the appeal was taken, § 35 of the act of April 12, 1900, known as the Foraker act (31 Stat. at L. 77, 85, chap. 191), was in force,—since superseded by § 244 of the Judicial Code of March 3, 1911 (36 Stat. at L. 1087, 1157, chap. 231, U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1911, pp. 128, 229),—and subjected appeals from the district court of the United States for Porto Rico to the regulations applicable to appeals from the supreme courts of the territories. These were controlled by act of April 7, 1874, chap. 80, § 2 (18 Stat. at L. 27, 28), by which it was provided that, instead of the evidence at large, a statement of the facts in the nature of a special verdict, with the rulings of the court on the admission or rejection of evidence when excepted to, should be made and certified by the court below, and transmitted to this court with the transcript of the proceedings and judgment or decree. Our jurisdiction therefore is confined to determining whether the facts found by the district court support its judgment; for no errors are assigned upon questions of evidence. Rosaly v. Graham y Frazer, 227 U. S. 584, 590, 57 L. ed. ——, 33 Sup. Ct. Rep. 333, and cases cited.

The findings are in substance as follows:

Jose Maria Hernandez, the paternal grandfather of complainants, was at the time of his death, in the year 1872, the owner and in possession of a tract of land in which was included the parcel of 106 acres in controversy. His title to this parcel was never recorded. Upon his death his son, Juan Hernandez, became by inheritance the owner of it, and entered into and remained in possession as owner until his death, which occurred in the year 1887; but his title was never recorded. Upon his death, Juan Hernandez left surviving him two young children, the complainants, and also a widow, their mother; she died in the year 1906, and the complainants, then still minors, became sole owners of the tract by inheritance from their father; but their title has never been recorded.

In the year 1890, the title to the land in question did not appear of record in favor of any person, either in the books of the present or modern registry, or in the books of the old registry, the ancient anotadurias, or contadurias. In that year Raimundo Morales, the maternal grandfather of the complainants, fraudulently representing himself to be the owner, appeared before the municipal court of Naranjito, an insular court, and by certain ex parte proceedings obtained from that court a decree declaring him to be entitled to the possession of the land but without prejudice to third parties who might show a better right to such possession. The possessory title so obtained was duly recorded or inscribed in the proper registry of property, in the same year, and was the only title to the land that then appeared recorded or inscribed in the registry.

In the year 1899, Morales again appeared before the same insular court, and petitioned for a decree converting the possessory title, or entry of possession in the registry, into a record of ownership (titulo de dominio). His petition and the proceedings had thereon in the insular court were based upon the provisions of a judicial order, dated April 4, 1899, and promulgated in the Official Gazette of Porto Rico under date April 7, 1899. This order was made under authority of Major General Guy V. Henry, U. S. Volunteers, at that time military governor of Porto Rico, and by its terms reduced from twenty years to six years the period during which real estate must be held in order to permit the conversion in the registry of a posesorio title to a dominio title. Upon the application of Morales, such proceedings were had in the insular court as were provided for in the judicial order, and the court in due time made and entered its decree to the effect that the entry of possession, or possessory title, which appeared in the registry recorded in favor of Morales, be converted into a record of ownership, or dominio title. Thereafter, and in the same year (1899), this decree was duly recorded or inscribed by Morales in the proper registry of title, and the dominio title thereafter appeared in the registry recorded solely in his name.

In the year 1901, there appearing in the registry no claim or right or title in the land on the part of any other person or persons. Morales, still fraudulently representing himself to be the true owner, mortgaged the land for value to the defendants, constituting the firm of J. Ochoa y Hermano, who truly and in good faith believed him (M- orales) to be the owner of it, and were entirely ignorant of the rights of the complainants therein. The mortgage was duly recorded in the proper registry of property in the same year.

Thereafter, and in the year 1903, the record still showing nothing respecting the ownership of the lands besides the dominio title of Morales and the mortgage of the defendants, and they being still ignorant of the rights of the complainants, Morales by deed duly executed before a notary public, in which his wife joined, sold and transferred the land to defendants in full payment of the amounts due and secured by the mortgage. The defendants duly recorded the deed in the same year, and by their agent immediately took possession of the land.

The present action was commenced in 1908, shortly after the complainants arrived at full age.

Upon these facts the district court concluded as matter of law that the judicial order of General Henry, dated April 4, 1899, so far as it operated retrospectively upon the rights of the complainants, who were minors at the time and for some time thereafter, and who owned the land during the entire period of nine years that elapsed between the fraudulent entry of possessory title in the name of their maternal grandfather, Morales, and the promulgation of General Henry's order,—was null and void because in contravention of the 'due process of law' clause of the 5th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

For an understanding of the questions presented, it should be premised that Congress declared war to exist between this country and Spain by an act of April 25, 1898 (30 Stat. at L. 364, chap. 189); that Porto Rico, then a colony of Spain, was occupied by the military forces of the United States from and after July 25th; that a protocol was signed in Washington, August 12th (30 Stat. at L. 1742), under which hostilities between the two countries were suspended pending negotiation of a treaty for the establishment of peace, by the terms of which protocol (inter alia) Spain agreed to cede the Island of Porto Rico to the United States and to immediately evacuate it, and commissioners were appointed to meet at Paris and proceed to the negotiation and conclusion of the treaty; that accordingly a treaty was signed at Paris under date December 10, 1898, ratifications being exchanged at Washington, April 11, 1899 (30 Stat. at L. 1754), and by its terms Porto Rico was ceded to the United States, and (article 9, p. 1759) 'the civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined by the Congress.' The military occupation of Porto Rico was immediately followed by the establishment of a provisional government, as will be mentioned below, and this government continued in control of the affairs of the Island continuously until the ratification of the treaty, and thereafter until the enactment of the Foraker Act of April 12, 1900, entitled 'An Act Temporarily to Provide Revenues and a Civil Government for Porto Rico, and for Other Purposes' (31 Stat. at L. 77, chap. 191).

The statement of facts is silent upon the question of the possession of the property from the death of the father of the appellees, in the year 1887, until the appellants entered into possession under the deed given to them by Morales, in the year 1903. Assuming (in favor of appellants) that Morales had possession from the time he procured the entry of a possessory title in his name, the effect of this, as between him and the true owners, was that uninterrupted possession for thirty years would ripen into a good title and confer immunity from action (former Civil Code [P. R.] arts. 1959, 1963, New Civil Code [P. R.] §§ 1860, 1864). He was not entitled to avail himself of article 1957, that declared a prescription by possession for ten years as to persons present, and for twenty years with regard to those absent, because this was confined to possession 'with good faith and proper title,' and Morales had neither, within the meaning of those terms as employed in th...