Dimaguila vs Monteiro

Mendoza, J.

Facts:

 Respondents Monteiro filed a complaint for partition and damages in the RTC alleging that they
are co-owners, with the petitioners Dimaguila, of a residential house and lot in Liliw, Laguna.
 Respondents Monteiro anchor their claim on a deed of sale executed in their favor by the heirs of
Pedro Dimaguila (heir of Perfecto).
 Petitioners Dimaguila countered that there was no co-ownership to speak of and that the property,
then owned by Maria Ignacio Buenaseda, had long been partitioned equally between her two sons,
Perfecto (northern half) and Vitaliano Dimaguila (southern half). The petitioners Dimaguila are heirs
of Vitaliano.
 Respondents amended their complaint and abandoned the original claim for partition and instead
sought the recovery of possession of a portion of the subject property occupied by the Dimaguilas.

Respondents Monteiro: Adopted the Dimaguilas' admission in their original answer that the subject
property had already been partitioned between Perfecto (northern) and Vitaliano (southern).

Petitioners Dimaguilas: Admitted that the subject property was inherited by, and divided equally but
denied the admission in their original answer that it had been actually divided into southern and northern
portions. In effect, they argued the existence of a co-ownership, contrary to their original position.
Dimaguilas alleged that counsel made a mistake when he alleged in their original answer that the property
had already been partitioned.

RTC and CA: Found for Respondents Monteiro, ordered possession of the land be given to respondents
Monteiro.

Issues: W/N the admission in the original answer operate as proof against petitioners. YES.

 Spouses Monteiro, as plaintiffs in the original case, had the burden of proof to establish their case
by a preponderance of evidence. To prove their claim of partition, the respondent spouses
presented the following: deed of extrajudicial partition, cadastral land map, and municipal’s
assessor’s records.

 It appears that the subject property had already been partitioned into definite portions. The
petitioners themselves admitted to this very fact in their original answer. Section 418 of Rule 129
of the Rules of Court provides that an admission made by a party in the course of the proceedings
in the same case does not require proof, and may be contradicted only by showing that it was made
through palpable mistake. Petitioners testified that such admission was the palpable mistake of
their counsel in his rush to file the answer, a copy of which was not provided to them.

 The petitioner’s argument is self-serving, unsupported by any iota of evidence. This position was
adopted by the petitioners only almost eight (8) years after their original answer was filed, in
response to the amended complaint of the respondent spouses. The petitioners are now estopped
from denying or attempting to prove that there was no partition of the property

 Considering that an admission does not require proof, the admission of the petitioners would
actually be sufficient to prove the partition even without the documents presented by the
respondents Monteiro. If anything, the additional evidence they presented only served to
corroborate the petitioners' admission.