Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Case Digest: Vda. de Baltazar vs. Court of Appeals G.R. No. 106082 I June 27, 1995


FACTS:
Daniel Panganiban is the owner of a parcel of residential land consisting of 117 square meters denominated as Lot no. 1027. Immediately to the front of said land is Lot 1026 of Loreto Vda. de Baltazar and her son Nestor Baltazar. Immediately behind is the Sta. Ana River. On either side are Lots 1025 and 1028 owned by Ricardo Calimon and Jose Legaspi, respectively. Braulio Street, a provincial road, runs along the frontage of Lots 1025, 1026 and 1028.

Sometime in 1989, Daniel Panganiban filed a complaint against the Baltazars who are owners of Lot 1026 for the establishment of a permanent and perpetual easement of right of way for him to have access to the provincial road. The Baltazars opposed, arguing that there exists two other rights of way adjacent to private respondent's property. They likewise argue that private respondent had abandoned the alleged right of way.

ISSUE:
Whether or not respondent Panganiban is entitled to claim an easement of right of way over the Baltazars' property.

DECISION:
Panganiban is entitled to claim an easement of right of way over the Baltazars’ property, having sufficiently established that the four requisites to claim a compulsory right of way have been sufficiently met, to wit: 1) Respondent Panganiban's property is indeed surrounded by immovables on three sides and a river on the fourth; 2) The Court of Appeals has already ordered the remand of this case to the lower court for the purpose of fixing the proper indemnity; 3) That the isolation of his property was not due to his own act for he merely bought Lot 1027, which was formerly part of the Baltazars' Lot 1026-A, 11 from petitioner Nestor Baltazar's predecessors-in-interest; and 4) both parties agreed that the passage claimed by respondent as his right of way, compared to the other passageways, is the shortest distance from respondent's lot to Braulio Street.

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