CASE DIGEST ON PERSONS AND FAMILY RELATIONS (PFR) SUBJECT

1st Year 1st Semester

Student : Guerrero, Grandeur P.G.

Freshman, Juris Doctor
Professor : Hon. Judge Eugene C. Paras

Case Digest, in re: Judicial Declaration of Void Marriage (Family

Code)

Title: Domingo v. Court of Appeals

[GR No. 104818, 17 September 1993]

Petitioner: ROBERTO DOMINGO

Respondents: COURT OF APPEALS and DELIA SOLEDAD AVERA

Ponente: Justice Romero

FACTS:

Soledad Domingo, married with Roberto Domingo in 1976, filed a petition

for the declaration of nullity of marriage and separation of property. She
did not know that Domingo had been previously married to Emerlinda dela
Paz in 1969. She came to know the previous marriage when the latter filed
a suit of bigamy against her. Furthermore, when she came home from
Saudi during her one-month leave from work, she discovered that Roberto
cohabited with another woman and had been disposing some of her
properties which is administered by Roberto. The latter claims that because
their marriage was void ab initio, the declaration of such voidance is
unnecessary and superfluous. On the other hand, Soledad insists the
declaration of the nullity of marriage not for the purpose of remarriage, but
in order to provide a basis for the separation and distribution of properties
acquired during the marriage.

ISSUE:

Whether or not a petition for judicial declaration should only be filed for
purposes of remarriage.

RULING:

The declaration of the nullity of marriage is indeed required for purposed of

remarriage. However, it is also necessary for the protection of the
subsequent spouse who believed in good faith that his or her partner was
not lawfully married marries the same. With this, the said person is freed
from being charged with bigamy.
When a marriage is declared void ab initio, law states that final judgment
shall provide for the liquidation, partition and distribution of the properties
of the spouses, the custody and support of the common children and the
delivery of their presumptive legitimes, unless such matters had been
adjudicated in previous judicial proceedings. Other specific effects flowing
therefrom, in proper cases, are the following:

Art. 43. xxx xxx xxx

(2) The absolute community of property or the conjugal partnership, as the

case may be, shall be dissolved and liquidated, but if either spouse
contracted said marriage in bad faith, his or her share of the net profits of
the community property or conjugal partnership property shall be forfeited
in favor of the common children or, if there are none, the children of the
guilty spouse by a previous marriage or, in default of children, the innocent
spouse;

(3) Donations by reason of marriage shall remain valid, except that if the
donee contracted the marriage in bad faith, such donations made to said
donee are revoked by operation of law;

(4) The innocent spouse may revoke the designation of the other spouse
who acted in bad faith as a beneficiary in any insurance policy, even if such
designation be stipulated as irrevocable; and

(5) The spouse who contracted the subsequent marriage in bad faith shall
be disqualified to inherit from the innocent spouse by testate and intestate
succession. (n)

Art. 44. If both spouses of the subsequent marriage acted in bad faith, said
marriage shall be void ab initio and all donations by reason of marriage and
testamentary disposition made by one in favor of the other are revoked by
operation of law.

Soledad’s prayer for separation of property will simply be the necessary

consequence of the judicial declaration of absolute nullity of their marriage.
Hence, the petitioner’s suggestion that for their properties be separated, an
ordinary civil action has to be instituted for that purpose is baseless. The
Family Code has clearly provided the effects of the declaration of nullity of
marriage, one of which is the separation of property according to the
regime of property relations governing them.