THE Supreme Court ruled that courts may make a provisional determination on whether a party is alive or deceased in ejectment suits.
This determination, however, is merely provisional and applies exclusively to the ejectment proceedings, said Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo, who penned the ruling, which denied the appeal filed by Belinda Soriano and her relatives in an ejectment case brought against them by Antonio Estrella.
Records showed that Estrella claimed ownership over a property in Quezon City, where Soriano and others resided with his permission. When they refused to vacate the property following his demand in 2012, Estrella filed an unlawful detainer case.
Soriano and others argued that Estrella lacked the legal capacity to sue, alleging that he had already passed away in 1990. They submitted his death certificate as evidence in support of their claim.
Both the Metropolitan Trial Court and the Regional Trial Court sided with Soriano and others, ruling that courts must recognize the death certificate unless it has been duly canceled.
However, the appellate court reversed the lower courts’ decisions. It found that the death certificate was contradicted by multiple pieces of evidence, including Estrella’s valid driver’s license, their own admission that he was the registered owner of the property, and a criminal complaint they had filed against him in 2013.
In this case, the Supreme Court found that Estrella had successfully overcome the presumption created by the death certificate. The parties themselves acknowledged that the Estrella who filed the case was the same Estrella named in the property’s title.
Soriano and others never alleged that he was an impostor or disputed his identity. This fact, together with Estrella’s living presence in court, confirmed his legal capacity to sue.
