CASE FACTS
Topic: Capacity • Dec. 15, 1908: Juan Codina Arenas and
of Act and Francisco Lara del Pino (as principals) w/
Restrictions
Alipio Locso, Vicente Sixto Villanueva and (the
Thereon:
Chinaman) Siy Ho (as sureties) assumed
Presumption of
Capacity
obligation to pay – jointly and severally – to the
plaintiff-appellee the sum of Php 3,305.76,
three months from this date, with an interest at
Php 1 per month.
• April 5, 1909: Standard Oil sued the five
debtors for payment of sum, together w/ the
Standard Oil interest thereon at rate of 1 per cent per month
Company. NY. from date of assumed obligation (12/15/08)
and the costs; Defendants were summoned, w/
record that showed summons was served on
v. Vicente Sixto Villanueva on April 17.
• May 12: Villanueva and Ho were declared to
Arenas
be in default, notified (14th for latter and 15th
for former).
ARELLANO,
C.J. • Aug. 28: Court of 1st Instance (of the city of
Manila) sentenced all defendants to pay (jointly
G.R. No. L-5921 and severally) to plaintiff company the
aforementioned sum, w/ interested thereon at
July 25, 1 per cent a month from Dec. 15, 1908 until
1911 complete payment of principal + costs.
•While judgment was in course of execution,
Elisa Torres de Villanueva (Vicente’s wife),
appeared and alleged the ff:
1. July 24, 1909: latter was declared to be
insane by Court of 1st Instance (Manila);
2. She was appointed his guardian by same
court;
3. Oct. 11: she was authorized by the court as
his guardian to institute the proper legal
proceedings in the present cause (issued in
behalf of the plaintiff-appellee co.);
4. She as guardian was not aware of the
proceedings had against Vicente and was only
by chance informed of it, and;
5. When Vicente gave the bond, he was
ISSUES
(1) Whether or not (WON)
suffering from monomania
of wealth necessarily
warrants the conclusion
that the person does not
have capacity to act.
(2) WON Villanueva,
appellant, was incapable
of entering into contract at
the time the bond was
executed on December
15, 1908.
Held: Therefore, the
judgment appealed from is
affirmed, with the costs of
this instance against the
appellant. So ordered.
RULING
RULES NEEDED FOR THE ANALYSIS
“All alienists and those writers who have treated of this branch of medical science distinguish numerous degrees of
insanity and imbecility…hence the confusion and the doubt in the minds of the majority of authors of treatises on the
subject in determining the limits of sane judgment and the point of beginning of this incapacity, there being some who
consider as a sufficient cause for such incapacity, not only insanity and imbecility, but even those other somnambulism,
epilepsy, drunkenness, suggestion, anger, and the divers passional(?) states which more or less violently deprive the
human will of necessary liberty.” (Manresa, Commentaries on the Civil Code, Vol. V, p.342.)
*In the SC’s knowledge (at the time) of the state of mental alienation such certainty has not yet been reached as to
warrant the conclusion – in a judicial decision – that he who suffers the monomania of wealth…is really insane. In absence
of a juridical declaration, that he acts under the influence of a perturbed mind, or that his mind is deranged when he
executes an onerous contract. The bond executed by Villanueva on 12/15/1908, and his incapacity, for the purpose of
providing a guardian for him, was not declared until 07/24/09.*
Civil Code, Art. 1277: In the contract of bond the consideration, general, is no other, as in all contract of pure beneficence,
than the liberality of the benefactor.
ANALYSIS OF THE CASE
SC has not found the proof of the error, it would have been necessary to show that such monomania was habitual and
constituted a veritable mental perturbation in the patient; that there was not, nor could there have been any other cause for
the contract than an ostentation of wealth and this purely an effect of monomania of wealth, and that the monomania
existed on the date when the bond in question was executed.
Witness testimonies from defendants’ physicians, Don Rudesino Cuervo and Don Gervasio de Ocampo, the first of whom
had visited him some 8 times from 1902-1093, and the latter only once in 1908; with regards to the defendant’s alleged
monomania Dr. Cuervo believes that if defendant were to be presented a document not concerning his houses, he would
be able to understand and comprehend the contents, while on the topic of sane intelligence, Dr. Ocampo stated that he is
of “ordinary intelligence”, with knowledge on how to read and write.
Meanwhile, Mr. F.B. Ingersoll (witness for plaintiff) testified that as a notary he had prepared the bond and received the
signers’ statements and that he had explained to defendant its contents and upon observation found the defendant to be
normal and regular with nothing that would “indicate the contrary”, with the defendant being “quiet and composed and
spoke in an ordinary way…”. In addition, Hon. Judge Araullo testified as a witness for the plaintiff as well and testified the
same as many, in that he did not notice any particular disorder or perturbation of his mental faculties. Capacity to act must
be supposed to attach to a person who has not previously been declared incapable, and such capacity is presumed to
continue so long as the contrary be not proved. Court sides with opinion that it has not.
Unclear why Villanueva gave the bond in favor of the two members of Areneas & Co. in Francisco Lara and Juan Arenas.
In addition, appellant presented a note by the latter addressed to his “friend”, Mr. Villanueva, on 05/13/09, which was two
days before he was declared to be in default, inviting him to a conference “for the purpose of treating of a matter of great
importance of much interest to Villanueva…” It cannot be affirmed with certainty that defendant engaged in the business of
giving bonds nor can it be sustained that there was no other cause for the giving of bond in question than the mental
disorder that dominated defendant’s intellect. There is no proof that the said bond was merely the product of an insensate
ostentation of wealth nor that he was influenced only by the monomania of boasting wealth. Here defendant’s wife
stresses that she had no clue that her husband engaged in the selling of bonds, and that with reference to the one
concerned, she had only learned of it by finding to note wherein he was invited to engage in such by Arenas.
There is also no proof granting that he was a monomaniac, and that he was dominated by that malady upon the bond’s
execution. It is a rule of constant application that it is not enough that there be more or less probability that a person was in
a state of dementia at a given time.
ANSWERS TO THE ISSUES:
already permanently insane and was in such
state when summoned and still continued to do
so.

In conclusion, she petitioned court to relieve

her husband from compliance, and to reopen
the trial for the introduction of evidence on his
behalf, with respect to his capacity at the time
of the bond’s execution.
• Court granted the petition, thus trial was
reopened for introduction of evidence (after
due consideration); court decided that when
Vicente Villanueva, on 12/15/1908, executed
bond in question, he understood perfectly the
nature and consequences of the act performed
by him. As a result of such findings, court ruled
that the petition for an indefinite stay of
execution of the judgment rendered in the case
be denied, and that said execution be carried
out. After filing of an exception to the ruling, a
new hearing was requested “w/reference to the
defendant Vicente S. Villanueva” and upon its
denial, a bill of exceptions was presented in
support of said appeal, submitted to SC and
based on a single assignment of error:
1) No, it does not.
-from the knowledge at that time of the state of mental alienation, there is not evidence to warrant the conclusion, in a
judicial decision, that a person suffering from monomania of wealth is really insane and therefore is deranged and
incapable of binding himself in a contract.
2.) No, he wasn’t
-Capacity to act must be supposed to attach to a person who has not previously been declared incapable, and such
capacity is presumed to continue so long contrary is not proved, that is, at the time of his acting he was incapable, crazy or
out of his mind; which, in the opinion of the court, has not been proved in this case.”
-There was no direct proof that showed that at the date of the giving of the bond, December 15, 1908, the appellant was
incapable of acting because of insanity. The witnesses who as physicians, testified that they observed insane periods in
Villanueva twice prior to 1903, once on 1908, but none at the time of the execution of the said bond on December 15,
1908
-It was also shown that the wife never before sought to legally deprive her husband management over his estate knowing
full well that he was insane.

Because the lower court found that the

monomania of great wealth, suffered by the
defendant…does not imply incapacity to
execute a bond.