PACETE vs.

CARIAGA
231 SCRA 321
FACTS:
The issue in this petition for certiorari is whether or not the CFI of Cotabato,
Branch I, gravely abused its discretion in denying petitioners motion for
extension of time to file their answer and in declaring petitioners in default
and in rendering its decision of which, among other things, decreed the legal
separation of petitioner Enrico L. Pacete and private respondent Concepcion
Alanis and held to be null and void ab initio the marriage of Enrico L. Pacete
to Clarita de la Concepcion.
Concepcion Alanis filed for the declaration of nullity of the marriage between
her erstwhile husband Enrico L. Pacete and one Clarita de la Concepcion, as
well as for legal separation and accounting and separation of property. She
averred that she was married to Pacete on 30 April 1938 and they had a child
named Consuelo. She learned that Pacete subsequently contracted a second
marriage with Clarita de la Concepcion. She and Pacete acquired vast
property that he fraudulently placed the several pieces of property either in
his name and Clarita or in the names of his children with Clarita and other
dummies;
After having been summoned, the defendants repeatedly asked the court for
extension of filing for an answer which eventually resulted to being declared
in default. Five months after the petition was filed the court granted the
issuance of a Decree of Legal Separation and declared the properties in
question as conjugal properties of Alanis and Pacete which were ordered
forfeited in favor of Alanis. The court also nullified his marriage to Clarita.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the court gravely abused its discretion in deciding the case.
HELD:
No defaults in actions for annulments of marriage or for legal separation. If
the defendant in an action for annulment of marriage or for legal separation
fails to answer, the court shall order the prosecuting attorney to investigate
whether or not collusion between the parties exists, and if there is no
collusion, to intervene for the State in order to see to it that the evidence
submitted is not fabricated.
Article 103 of the Civil Code, now Article 58 of the Family Code, further
mandates that an action for legal separation must in no case be tried before
six months shall have elapsed since the filing of the petition, obviously in

order to provide the parties a cooling-off period. In this interim, the court
should take steps toward getting the parties to reconcile.
The decision of the lower court was nullified.
LAPUZ vs. EUFEMIO
43 SCRA 177
FACTS:
Carmen O. Lapuz Sy filed a petition for legal separation against Eufemio S.
Eufemio and he should be deprived of his share of the conjugal partnership
profits. They were married civilly on 21 September 1934 and canonically on
30 September 1934. They lived together as husband until 1943 when her
husband abandoned her. They had no child; that they acquired properties
during their marriage; and that she discovered her husband cohabiting with
a Chinese woman named Go Hiok on or about March 1949.
Eufemio S. Eufemio alleged affirmative and special defenses, and, along with
several other claims involving money and other properties, counter-claimed
for the declaration of nullity ab initio of his marriage with Carmen O. Lapuz
Sy, on the ground of his prior and subsisting marriage, celebrated according
to Chinese law and customs, with one Go Hiok, alias Ngo Hiok
Before the trial could be completed, petitioner Carmen O. Lapuz Sy died in a
vehicular accident on. Counsel for petitioner duly notified the court of her
death and moved to substitute the deceased Carmen by her father, Macario
Lapuz.
ISSUES:
What is the effect of death of either party to a legal separation case?
HELD:
The Article 100 of Civil Code allows only the innocent spouse to claim legal
separation; and in Article 108, provides that the spouses can, by their
reconciliation, stop or abate the proceedings and even rescind a decree of
legal separation already rendered. Being personal in character, it follows that
the death of one party to the action causes the death of the action itself
actio personalis moritur cum persona.
A further reason why an action for legal separation is abated by the death of
the plaintiff, even if property rights are involved, is that these rights are mere
effects of decree of separation, their source being the decree itself; without

the decree such rights do not come into existence, so that before the finality
of a decree, these claims are merely rights in expectation. Property rights
acquired by either party could be resolved and determined in a proper action
for partition by either the appellee or by the heirs of the appellant.
As to the petition of Eufemio for a declaration of nullity of his marriage to
Carmen Lapuz, such action became moot and academic upon the death of
the latter, and there could be no further interest in continuing the same after
her demise, that automatically dissolved the questioned union.