[ G.R. No. 5939. March 29, 1911 ] 19 Phil. 238
[ G.R. No. 5939. March 29, 1911 ]
JOSE MARIN, ADMINISTRATOR AND APPELLANT, VS. VALENTINA NACIANCENO, CLAIMANT AND APPELLEE. D E C I S I O N
MORELAND, J.:
This is a proceeding to compel the payment of a legacy. The legacy over which this action arose was bequeathed to Felisa Hernandez, who died before the testatrix, leaving surviving her the petitioners in this case her only heirs at law and next of kin. The testatrix did not alter her will in respect to this legacy after the death of the legatee, although she was cognizant thereof, the deceased legatee being a near relation. Opposition to the payment of this legacy was made by the executor of the will upon the ground that the. legacy having been to Felisa Hernandez and she having died before the testatrix, the legacy necessarily lapsed because, under the provisions of the Civil Code, the heirs and next of kin of a deceased person take only such property as was vested in the deceased at the time of his death; that the legacy not having vested before the death of the legatee such legatee had no interest therein which could pass to her heirs and next of kin. The petitioners rely for relief, and for escape from said provisions of the Civil Code, upon section 758 of the Code of Civil Procedure. That section reads as follows:
“When a devise or a legacy is made to a child or other relation to the testator, and the devisee or legatee dies before the testator, leaving issue surviving the testator, such issue shall take the estate so given as the devisee or legatee would have done, if he had survived the testator, unless a different disposition is required by law.”
The executor asserts that this provision of the code is inapplicable by reason of the fact that it is in direct opposition to express provisions of the Civil Code above referred to, and that said section having as a part thereof the sentence, “unless a different disposition is required by law,” indicates clearly and necessarily that it was the intention of said section to exclude from its operation said provisions of the Civil Code. In our opinion this construction would repeal and annul the section absolutely. The sole and whole object of the section is to avoid the effects of the very provisions of the Civil Code referred to. No other purpose is possible. It could not have been, then, the intention of the legislature to destroy by said section the force of said provisions and, in the very section destroying those provisions, incorporate a sentence resuscitating them. It would amount to an absurdity to say that the legislature enacted a law and repealed it at the same time. If the petitioners are not entitled to the payment of this legacy, then section 758 has absolutely no value and can produce no results. It might as well never have been written. It is a most flagrant violation of the rules of statutory construction to give to a statute a meaning which, in effect and in reality, repeals it altogether, where any other reasonable construction is possible. (Farmers Bank vs. Hale, 59 N. Y., 53, 59; Sutherland, Statutory Construction, paragraph 221.) We do not now decide what is the meaning of the phrase referred to, nor to what it refers. That is unnecessary to a decision of the case before us. We now simply hold that it will not bear the construction given to it by the opponents of the motion before us. We are of the opinion that the order of the court below requiring the payment of the legacy as petitioned is correct under the law and must be affirmed. The judgment appealed from is, therefore, affirmed, with costs. Carson and Trent, JJ., concur. Johnson, J., concurs in the result.