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[1918V100E] GREGORIO JIMENEZ, plaintiff-appellee, vs. PEDRO RABOT, NICOLASA
JIMENEZ and her husband, EMILIO RODRIGUEZ, defendants. PEDRO RABOT,
appellant.1918 Jul 27En BancG.R. No. 12579D E C I S I O N
STREET, J .:
This action was instituted by the plaintiff, Gregorio Jimenez, to recover from the
defendant, Pedro Rabot, a parcel of land situated in the municipality of Alaminos, in
the Province of Pangasinan, and described in the complaint as follows:
"Approximate area of three hectares; bounded on the north and west with land of
Pedro Reynoso; on the south with land of Nicolasa Jimenez; and on the east with
land of Calixta Apostol before, at present with that of Juan Montemayor and Simon
del Barrio. It is situated in Dinmayat Tancaran, barrio of Alos of this same
municipality of Alaminos, Pangasinan."
From a judgment rendered in favor of the plaintiff, Pedro Rabot has appealed; but
his codefendants, Nicolasa Jimenez and her husband, who were cited by the
defendant for the purpose of holding her liable upon her warranty in case of his
eviction, have not appealed.
It is admitted that the parcel of land in question, together with two other parcels in
the same locality originally belonged to the plaintiff, having been assigned to him as
one of the heirs in the division of the estate of his father. It further appears that
while Gregorio was staying at Vigan, in the Province of Ilocos Sur, during the year
1911, his property in Alaminos was confided by him to the care of his elder sister
Nicolasa Jimenez. On February 7 of that year he wrote this sister a letter from Vigan
in which he informed her that he was pressed for money and requested her to sell
one of his parcels of land and send him the money in order that he might pay his
debts. This letter contains no description of the land to be sold other than is
indicated in the words "one of my parcels of land" ("uno de mis terrenos").
Acting upon this letter Nicolasa approached the defendant Pedro Rabot, and the
latter agreed to buy the parcel in question for the sum of P500. Two hundred and
fifty pesos were paid at once, with the understanding that a deed of conveyance
would be executed when the balance should be paid. Nicolasa admits having
received this payment of P250 at the time stated; but there is no evidence that she
sent any of it to her brother.
About one year later Gregorio came down to Alaminos and demanded that his sister
should surrender this piece of land to him, it being then in her possession. She
refused upon some pretext or other to do so; and as a result Gregorio, in
conjunction with others of his brothers and sisters, whose properties were also in
the hands of Nicolasa, instituted an action in the Court of First Instance for the
purpose of recovering their land from her control. This action was decided favorably
to the plaintiffs upon August 12, 1913; and no appeal was taken from the judgment.

Meanwhile, upon May 31, 1912, Nicolasa Jimenez executed and delivered to Pedro
Rabot a deed purporting to convey to him the parcel of land which is the subject of
this controversy. The deed recites that the sale was made in consideration of the
sum of P500, the payment of which is acknowledged. Pedro Rabot went into
possession, and the property was found in his hands at the time when final
judgment was entered in favor of the plaintiffs in the action above mentioned. It will
thus be seen that Pedro Rabot acquired possession under the deed from Nicolasa
during the pendency of the litigation in which she was defendant; but it does not
positively appear that he was at the time cognizant of that circumstance.
In considering the questions presented by this appeal one or two preliminary
observations may be made. The first is that, as a matter of formality, a power of
attorney to convey real property ought to appear in a public document, just as any
other instrument intended to transmit or convey an interest in such property ought
to appear in a public document. (Art. 1280, Civil Code.) But inasmuch as it is an
established doctrine that a private document is competent to create, transmit,
modify, or extinguish a right in real property (Thunga Chui vs. Que Bentec, 2 Phil.
Rep., 561; Couto Soriano vs. Cortes, 8 Phil. Rep., 459), it follows that a power of
attorney to convey such property, even though in the form of a private document,
will operate with effect. Again, supposing that the letter contained adequate
authority for Nicolasa to sell the property in question, her action in conveying the
property in her own name, without showing the capacity in which she acted, was
doubtless irregular. Nevertheless, such deed would in any event operate to bind her
brother, the plaintiff, in its character as a contract (Lyon vs. Pollock, 99 U. S., 668;
25 L. ed.,-265), and supposing that the authority was sufficient, he could be
compelled by a proper judicial proceeding to execute a document to carry such
contract into effect. (Art. 1279, Civil Code.)
The principal question for consideration therefore in the end resolves itself into this,
whether the authority conferred on Nicolasa by the letter of February 7, 1911, was
sufficient to enable her to bind her brother. The only provisions of law bearing on
this point are contained in article 1713 of the Civil Code and in section 335 of the
Code of Civil Procedure. Article 1713 of the Civil Code requires that the authority to
alienate land shall be contained in an express mandate; while subsection 5 of
section 335 of the Code of Civil Procedure says that the authority of the agent must
be in writing and subscribed by the party to be charged. We are of the opinion that
the authority expressed in the letter is a sufficient compliance with both
requirements.
It has been urged here that in order for the authority to be sufficient under section
335 of the Code of Civil Procedure the authorization must contain a particular
description of the property which the agent is to be permitted to sell. There is no
such requirement in subsection 5 of section 335; and we do not believe that it
would be legitimate to read such a requirement into it. The purpose in giving a
power of attorney is to substitute the mind and hand of the agent for the mind and
hand of the principal; and if the character and extent of the power is so far defined
as to leave no doubt as to the limits within which the agent is authorized to act, and
he acts within those limits, the principal cannot question the validity of his act. It is
not necessary that the particular act to be accomplished should be predestinated by
the language of the power. The question to be answered always, after the power

has been exercised, is rather this: Was the act which the agent performed within the
scope of his authority? In the case before us, if the question is asked whether the
act performed by Nicolasa Jimenez was within the scope of the authority which had
been conferred upon her, the answer must be obviously in the affirmative.
It should not escape observation that the problem with which we are here
concerned relates to the sufficiency of the power of attorney under subsection 5 of
section 335 of the Code of Civil Procedure and not to the sufficiency of the note or
memorandum of the contract, or agreement of sale, required by the same
subsection, in connection with the first paragraph of the same section. It is well
settled in the jurisprudence of England and the United States that when the owner,
or his agent, comes to make a contract to sell, or a conveyance to effect a transfer,
there must be a description of the property which is the subject of the sale or
conveyance. This is necessary of course to define the object of the contract.
(Brockway vs. Frost, 40 Minn., 155; Carr vs. Passaic Land etc. Co., 19 N. J. Eq., 424;
Lippincott vs. Bridgewater, 55 N. J. Eq., 208; Craig vs. Zelian, 137 Cal., 105; 20 Cyc.,
271.)
The general rule here applicable is that the description must be sufficiently definite
to identify the land either from the recitals of the contract or deed or from external
facts referred to in the document, thereby enabling one to determine the identity of
the land and if the description is uncertain on its face or is shown to be applicable
with equal plausibility to more than one tract, it is insufficient. The principle
embodied in these decisions is not, in our opinion, applicable to the present case,
which relates to the sufficiency of the authorization, not to the sufficiency of the
contract or conveyance. It is unquestionable that the deed which Nicolasa executed
contains a proper description of the property which she purported to convey.
There is ample authority to the effect that a person may by a general power of
attorney authorize an agent to sell "all" the land possessed by the principal, or all
that he possesses in a particular city, county, or state. (Roper vs. McFadden, 48 Cal.,
346; Rownd vs. Davidson, 113 La., 1047; Carson vs. Ray, 52 N. C., 609; 78 Am. Dec.,
267; 31 Cyc., 1229.) It is also held that where a person authorizes an agent to sell a
farm ("my farm") in a certain county, this is sufficient, if it be shown that such party
has only one farm in that county. (Marriner vs. Dennison, 78 Cal., 202.) In Linton vs.
Moorhead (209 Pa. St., 646), the power authorized the agent to sell or convey "any
or all tracts, lots, or parcels" of land belonging to the plaintiff. It was held that this
was adequate. In Lyon vs. Pollock (99 U. S., 668), the owner in effect authorized an
agent to sell everything he had in San Antonio, Texas. The authority was held
sufficient. In Linan vs. Puno (31 Phil. Rep., 259), the authority granted was to the
effect that the agent might administer "the interests" possessed by the principal in
the municipality of Tarlac and to that end he was authorized to purchase, sell,
collect, and pay, etc. It was held that this was a sufficient power.
In the present case the agent was given the power to sell either of the parcels of
land belonging to the plaintiff. We can see no reason why the performance of an act
within the scope of this authority should not bind the plaintiff to the same extent as
if he had given the agent authority to sell "any or all" and she had conveyed only
one.

From what has been said it is evident that the lower court should have absolved the
defendant Pedro Rabot from the complaint. Judgment will accordingly be reversed,
without any express adjudication of costs of this instance. So ordered.
Torres, Johnson, Malcolm, Avancea and Fisher, JJ., concur.
\---!e-library! 6.0 Philippines Copyright 2000 by Sony Valdez---/
([1918V100E] GREGORIO JIMENEZ, plaintiff-appellee, vs. PEDRO RABOT, NICOLASA
JIMENEZ and her husband, EMILIO RODRIGUEZ, defendants. PEDRO RABOT,
appellant., G.R. No. 12579, 1918 Jul 27, En Banc)