LAW ON EVIDENCE | MCLAUHIN VS. CA ,ET AL., G.R. NO. 57552, OCTO. 10 1986
MCLAUHIN VS. CA ,ET AL.,
G.R. NO. 57552, OCTO. 10 1986
FACTS
In 1977, Luisa F. McLaughlin and Ramon Flores entered into a contract of conditional sale of real property. When Flores failed to pay the balance due in May 1977, McLaughlin filed a complaint for rescission of the deed of conditional sale in 1979. The parties submitted a compromise agreement in 1979, which provided for the payment of the balance in two equal installments in 1980, with an additional agreement for Flores to pay P1,000 monthly rental beginning in December 1979. The compromise agreement also stated that if Flores failed to comply with his obligations, McLaughlin would be entitled to the issuance of a writ of execution rescinding the deed of conditional sale, and in such eventuality, Flores would forfeit all payments made as liquidated damages. When Flores failed to pay the balance due on October 31, 1980, McLaughlin refused his tendered payment on November 3, 1980. Whether private respondent remains liable for the payment of his obligation.
HELD Yes. The court ruled that according to Article 1256 of the Civil Code of the Philippines, if the creditor to whom tender of payment has been made refuses without just cause to accept it, the debtor shall be released from responsibility by the consignation of the thing or sum due, and that consignation alone shall produce the same effect in the five cases enumerated therein; Article 1257 provides that in order that the consignation of the thing (or sum) due may release the obligor, it must first be announced to the persons interested in the fulfillment of the obligation; and Article 1258 provides that consignation shall be made by depositing the thing (or sum) due at the disposal of the judicial authority and that the interested parties shall also be notified thereof. Tender of payment must be distinguished from consignation. Tender is the antecedent of consignation, that is, an act preparatory to the consignation, which is the principal, and from which are derived the immediate consequences which the debtor desires or seeks to obtain. Tender of payment may be extrajudicial, while consignation is necessarily judicial, and the priority of the first is the attempt to make a private settlement before proceeding to the solemnities of consignation.
Here however, although private respondent had made a valid tender of payment which preserved his rights as a vendee in the contract of conditional sale of real property, he did not follow it with a consignation or deposit of the sum due with the court. In the case at bar, although as above stated private respondent had preserved his rights as a vendee in the contract of conditional sale of real property by a timely valid tender of payment of the balance of his obligation which was not accepted by petitioner, he remains liable for the payment of his obligation because of his failure to deposit the amount due with the court.