Toda Jr Vs. Court Of Appeals Digest

TODA JR. VS. COURT OF APPEALS FACTS: Benigno Toda, Jr. (Benigno for brevity) and Rose Marie TuasonToda (Rose Marie for brevity) were married on June 9, 1951 and were blessed with two children. Individual differences and the alleged infidelity of Benigno, however, marred the conjugal union thereby prompting Rose Marie to file on December 18, 1979 in the former Court of First Instance of Rizal, 2 as Civil Case No. 35566, a petition for termination of conjugal partnership for alleged mismanagement and dissipation of conjugal funds against Benigno. After hearings were held, the parties in order to avoid further "disagreeable proceedings," filed on April 1, 1981 a joint petition forjudicial approval of dissolution of conjugal partnership under Article 191 of the Civil Code, docketed as Special Proceeding No. 9478, 3 which was consolidated with the aforesaid civil case. This petition which was signed by the parties on March 30, 1981, embodied a compromise agreement allocating to the spouses their respective shares in the conjugal partnership assets and dismissing with prejudice the said Civil Case No. 35566, CA-G.R. No. 11123-SP of the Court of Appeals and G.R. No. 56121 of this Court. The said petition and the compromise agreement therein were approved by the trial court in its order of June 9, 1981. 4 Thereafter, several orders were issued by the lower court pertaining to the interpretation and implementation of the compromise agreement ISSUE: When does the compromise agreement became effective? HELD: We are in agreement with the holding of the Court of Appeals that the compromise agreement became effective only on June 9, 1981, the date it was approved by the trial court, and not on March 30, 1981 when it was signed by the parties. Under Article 134 of the Family Code “in the absence of express declaration in the marriage settlements, the separation of property between the spouses during the marriage shall not take place save in virtue of a judicial order ” hence, the separation of property is not effected by mere execution of the contract or agreement of the parties, but by the decree of the court approving the same. It, therefore, becomes effective only upon judicial approval, without which it is void. Furthermore, Article 137 of

the said code explicitly pro-vides that the conjugal partnership is dissolved only upon the issuance of a decree of separation of property.