CREDIT TRANSACTIONS CASE DIGEST/ ACME SHOE, RUBBER & PLASTIC VS. COURT OF APPEALS, 260 SCRA 714, G.R. NO. 103576, 22 AUGUST 1996
ACME SHOE, RUBBER & PLASTIC VS. COURT OF APPEALS,
260 SCRA 714, G.R. NO. 103576, 22 AUGUST 1996
TOPIC/DOCTRINE
While a pledge, real estate mortgage, or antichre-sis may
exceptionally secure after-incurred obligations so long as these future debts
are accurately described, a chattel mortgage, however, can only cover
obligations existing at the time the mortgage is constituted.
FACTS
Petitioner Chua Pac, the president and general manager of
co-petitioner “Acme Shoe, Rubber & Plastic Corporation,” executed on 27
June 1978, for and in behalf of the company, a chattel mortgage in favor of
private respondent Producers Bank of the Philippines. The mortgage stood by way
of security for petitioner’s corporate loan of three million pesos
(P3,000,000.00). In due time, the loan of P3,000,000.00 was paid by petitioner
corporation. Subsequently, in 1981, it obtained from respondent bank additional
financial accommodations totalling P2,700,000.00.2 These borrowings were on due
date also fully paid.
On 10 and 11 January 1984, the bank yet again extended to
petitioner corporation a loan of one million pesos (P1,000,000.00) covered by
four promissory notes for P250,000.00 each. Due to financial constraints, the
loan was not settled at maturity. Respondent bank thereupon applied for an
extrajudicial foreclosure of the chattel mortgage, hereinbefore cited, with the
Sheriff of Caloocan City, Ultimately, the court ordered the foreclosure of the
chattel mortgage. It held petitioner corporation bound by the stipulations,
aforequoted, of the chattel mortgage.
ISSUE
Would it be valid and effective to have a clause in a
chattel mortgage that purports to likewise extend its coverage to obligations
yet to be contracted or incurred?
RULING
No.
The court held that while a pledge, real estate mortgage,
or antichre-sis may exceptionally secure after-incurred obligations so long as
these future debts are accurately described, a chattel mortgage, however, can
only cover obligations existing at the time the mortgage is constituted. Although
a promise expressed in a chattel mortgage to include debts that are yet to be
contracted can be a binding commitment that can be compelled upon, the security
itself, however, does not come into existence or arise until after a chattel
mortgage agreement covering the newly contracted debt is executed either by
concluding a fresh chattel mortgage or by amending the old contract conformably
with the form prescribed by the Chattel Mortgage Law.
Here, the court held that in the chattel mortgage here
involved, the only obligation specified in the chattel mortgage contract was
the P3,000,000.00 loan which petitioner corporation later fully paid. By virtue
of Section 3 of the Chattel Mortgage Law, the payment of the obligation
automatically rendered the chattel mortgage void or terminated, there no longer
was any chattel mortgage that could cover the new loans that were concluded
thereafter. the questioned decisions of the appellate court and the lower court
are set aside without prejudice to the appropriate legal recourse by private
respondent as may still be warranted as an unsecured creditor.