Delos Santos v. Jarra

Facts:

On the 1st of September, 1906, Felix de los Santos brought suit against Agustina Jarra, the administratrix of the estate of Magdaleno Jimenea, alleging that in the latter part of 1901 Jimenea borrowed and obtained from the plaintiff ten first-class carabaos, to be used at the animal-power mill of his hacienda during the season of 1901-2, without recompense or remuneration whatever for the use thereof, under the sole condition that they should be returned to the owner as soon as the work at the mill was terminated; that Magdaleno Jimenea, however, did not return the carabaos, notwithstanding the fact that the plaintiff claimed their return after the work at the mill was finished; that Magdaleno Jimenea died on the 28th of October, 1904, and the defendant herein was appointed by the Court of First Instance of Occidental Negros administratrix of his estate and she took over the administration of the same and is still performing her duties as such administratrix; that the plaintiff presented his claim to the commissioners of the estate of Jimenea, within the legal term, for the return of the said ten carabaos, but the said commissioners rejected his claim as appears in their report.

Held:

The obligation of the bailee or of his successors to return either the thing loaned or its value, is sustained by the supreme tribunal of Sapin. In its decision of March 21, 1895, it sets out with precision the legal doctrine touching commodatum as follows:

Although it is true that in a contract of commodatum the bailor retains the ownership of the thing loaned, and at the expiration of the period, or after the use for which it was loaned has been accomplished, it is the imperative duty of the bailee to return the thing itself to its owner, or to pay him damages if through the fault of the bailee the thing should have been lost or injured, it is clear that where public securities are involved, the trial court, in deferring to the claim of the bailor that the amount loaned be returned him by the bailee in bonds of the same class as those which constituted the contract.

The demand for the exclusion of the said carabaos belonging to a third party and which did not form part of the property of the deceased, must be the subject of a direct decision of the court in an ordinary action, wherein the right of the third party to the property which he seeks to have excluded from the inheritance and the right of the deceased has been discussed, and rendered in view of the result of the evidence adduced by the administrator of the estate and of the claimant, since it is so provided by the second part of section 699 and by section 703 of the Code of Civil Procedure; the refusal of the commissioners before whom the plaintiff unnecessarily appeared can not affect nor reduce the unquestionable right of ownership of the latter, inasmuch as there is no law nor principle of justice authorizing the successors of the late Jimenea to enrich themselves at the cost and to the prejudice of Felix de los Santos.