RUBIAS vs.

BATILLER (1973) Lawyer son-in-law case In 1952, the land registration court dismissed Francisco Militantes application of registration for 171 hectares of land located in Barotac Viejo, province of Iloilo, but in 1958, the CA affirmed by final judgment the land registration courts decision. While appealing the decision of the land registration court, Francisco Militante purportedly sold to his lawyer counsel and son-in-law, Atty. Domingo Rubias, for the sum of P2,000.00 a parcel of untitled land having an area of 144 hectares. The land claimed by the Atty. Rubias as his own was surveyed on June 6 and 7,1956, and a plan approved by Director of Land on November 15, 1956 was issued, identified as Psu 155241. In 1964, Atty. Rubias filed a suit to recover the ownership and possession of certain portions of the lot against its present occupant, Isaias Batiller, who allegedly entered said portions of the lot on 1945 and in 1959. Defendant Batiller on the other hand proved by competent evidence during the trial that subject lot No. 2 of the Psu-1552 was originally owned and possessed by Felipe Batiller, grandfather of the defendant Basilio Batiller, on the death of the former in 1920, as his sole heir. Isaias Batiller succeeded his father , Basilio Batiller, in the ownership and possession of the land in the year 1930, and since then up to the present. Batiller also stated that the alleged predecessors in interest of the plaintiff have never been in the actual possession of the land and that they never had any title thereto, and that their application for Free Patent over said land has been approved. Whether or not the contract of sale between appellant and his father-in-law, the late Francisco Militante over the property subject of Plan Psu-99791 was void because it was made when plaintiff was counsel of his father-in-law in a land registration case involving the property in dispute? VOID. The purchase by a lawyer of the property in litigation from his client is categorically prohibited by Article 1491, paragraph 5 of the Civil Code; and that consequently, plaintiff's purchase of the property in litigation from his client (assuming that his client could sell the same since as already shown above, his client's claim to the property was defeated and rejected) was void and could produce no legal effect, by virtue of Article 1409, paragraph 7 of our Civil Code which provides that contracts "expressly prohibited or declared void by law" are " inexistent and that these contracts cannot be ratified. Neither can the right to set up the defense of illegality be waived."

NOTES Article 1491 provides that the following persons cannot acquire any purchase, even at a public or judicial auction, either in person or through the mediation of another: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) guardian agents executors and administrators public officers and employees those in the administration of justice (a) judges (b) prosecuting attorneys (c) clerks of superior and inferior courts (d) other officers and employees connected with the administration of justice (e) other officers and employees (6) any others specially disqualified by law