Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. 37078 September 27, 1933
ENRIQUE MONSERRAT, plaintiff-appellee,
vs.
CARLOS G. CERON, ET AL., defendants.
ERMA, INC., and, THE SHERIFF OF MANILA, respondents.
Juan T. Santos and Arsenio Solidum for appellants.
Cardenas and Casal for appellee.
VILLA-REAL, J .:
This is an appeal taken by the defendant-entity, Erma, Inc., and by the sheriff of the City of
Manila, from the judgment rendered by the Court of First Instance of Manila, the dispositive part
of which reads as follows:
In view of the foregoing considerations, judgment is rendered in favor of the plaintiff
declaring the preliminary injunction issued herein final and permanent; declaring the
plaintiff herein the owner of the 600 shares of stock, Exhibit 1; declaring the mortgage
constituted on the ownership of the shares of stock in question null and void and without
force and effect, although the mortgage on the usufruct enjoyed by the mortgage debtor
Carlos G. Ceron in the said 600 shares of stock is hereby declared valid, with costs
against the defendants. It is so ordered.
In support of this appeal, the appellants assign nine alleged errors in the decision of the trial
court, which we shall discuss in the course of this decision.
Some of the following facts are undisputed and others proven by a preponderance of the
evidence:
The plaintiff herein, Enrique Monserrat, was the president and manager of the Manila Yellow
Taxicab Co., Inc., and the owner of P1,200 common shares of stock thereof.
On March 25, 1930, in consideration of the interest shown and the financial aid extended him in
the organization of the corporation by Carlos G. Ceron, one of the defendants herein, Enrique
Monserrat assigned to the former the usufruct of half of the aforesaid common shares of stock,
the corresponding certificate of stock No. 7, having been issued in the name of said Carlos G,
Ceron to that effect on March 24, 1930. (Exhibit 1.) Said assignment or transfer only gave the
transferee the right to enjoy, during his lifetime, the profits which might be derived from the
shares assigned him, prohibiting him from selling, mortgaging, encumbering, alienating or
otherwise exercising any act implying absolute ownership of all or any of the shares in question,
the transferor having reserved for himself and his heirs the right to vote derived from said shares
of stock and to recover the ownership thereof at the termination of the usufruct (Exhibit A).
Stock certificate No. 7 was recorded in the name of Carlos G. Ceron and the aforesaid deed of
transfer Exhibit A, was noted by himself as secretary, on page 22 of the Stock and Transfer Book
of the Manila Yellow Taxicab Co., Inc.
By way of defense, the defendants herein alleged that on February 20, 1931, Eduardo R. Matute,
president of the defendant corporation, Erma, Inc., and the defendant Carlos G. Ceros. appeared
at the plaintiff's office on Mabini Street, Manila, and there Ceron, at a distance of about three
meters from the plaintiff, showed Matute the stock book of the Manila Yellow Taxicab Co., Inc.,
Matute did not see the annotation on page 22 thereof regarding exhibit A which, according to
Ceron, was executed two months after March 25, 1930, the date on which it appears to have been
executed. Ceron alleges that, upon instructions of the plaintiff, he did not make any notation of
said document in the stock book until May 5, 1931, the date on which the shares of stock in
question were to be sold at public auction to satisfy his debt to Matute.
On February 26, 1931, Carlos G. Ceron mortgaged to Eduardo R. Matute some shares of stock of
the Manila Yellow Taxicab Co., Inc., among which were the 600 common shares of stock in
question, for the sum of P30,000. Ceron endorsed to Matute the certificate of stock Exhibit 1, of
which Matute has been in possession ever since. When Ceron mortgaged the shares in question
to Matute, he did not inform Matute of the existence of the document, Exhibit A, and the latter
never had any knowledge thereof. When he was asked by the plaintiff whether he succeeded in
carrying out his transaction with Matute, Carlos G. Ceron informed him of the aforesaid
mortgage at the beginning of March 1931. Ceron continued as secretary of the Manila Yellow
Taxicab Co., Inc., until May 5, 1931.
The first question to decide in the present appeal is whether or not it is necessary to enter upon
the books of the corporation a mortgage constituted on common shares of stock in order that
such mortgage may be valid and may have force and effect as against third persons.
Section 35 of the Corporation Law provides the following:
SEC. 35. The capital stock of stock corporations shall be divided into shares for which
certificates signed by the president or the vice-president, counter signed by the secretary
or clerk and sealed with the seal of the corporation, shall be issued in accordance with the
by-laws. Shares of stock so issued are personal property and may be transferred by
delivery of the certificate indorsed by the owner or his attorney in fact or other person
legally authorized to make the transfer. No transfer, however, shall be valid, except as
between the parties, until the transfer is entered and noted upon the books of the
corporation so as to show the names of the parties to the transaction, the date of the
transfer the number of the certificate, and the number of shares transferred.
No share of stock against which the corporation hold, any unpaid claim shall be
transferable on the books of the corporation.
The legal provision just quoted does not require any entry except of transfers of shares of stock
in order that such transfers may be valid as against third persons. Now, what did the Legislature
mean in using the word "transfer"?
It is a rule of statutory construction that the words of a statute are to be taken in their natural,
plain and ordinary signification in accordance with the common and approved usage of the
language, giving to words of common use their popularly accepted meaning and to technical
terms or words of art, their accepted special signification, unless there is reason to believe from
the context of the statute that such words have been used in another sense. (Black, Construction
and Interpretation of Laws, section 57.) Inasmuch as it does not appear from the text of the
Corporation Law that an attempt was made to give a special signification to the word "transfer",
we shall construe it according to its accepted meaning in ordinary parlance.
The word "transferencia" (transfer) is defined by the "Diccionario de la Academia de la Lengua
Castellana" as "accion y efecto de transferir" (the act and effect of transferring); and the verb
"transferir", as "ceder o renunciar en otro el derecho o dominio que se tiene sobre una cosa,
haciendole dueno de ella" (to assign or waive the right in, or absolute ownership of, a thing in
favor of another, making him the owner thereof).
In the Law Dictionary of "Words and Phrases", third series, volume 7, p. 589, the word "transfer"
is defined as follows:
"Transfer" means any act by which property of one person is vested in another, and
"transfer of shares", as used in Uniform Stock Transfer Act (Comp. St. Supp., 690),
implies any means whereby one may be divested of and another acquire ownership of
stock. (Wallach vs. Stein [N.J.], 136 A., 209, 210.)"
In view of the definitions cited above, the question arises as to whether or not a mortgage
constituted on certain shares of stock in accordance with Act No. 1508, as amended by Act No.
2496, is a transfer of such shares in the abovementioned sense.
Section 3 of the aforesaid Act No. 1508, as amended by Act No. 2496, defines the phrase
"hipoteca mobiliaria" (chattel mortgage) as follows:
SEC. 3. A chattel mortgage is a conditional sale of personal property as security for the
payment of a debt, or the performance of some other obligation specified therein, the
condition being that the sale shall be avoided upon the seller paying to the purchaser a
sum of money or doing some other act named. If the condition is performed according to
its terms the mortgage and sale immediately become void, and the mortgage is hereby
divested of his title.
According to the legal provision just quoted, although a chattel mortgage, accompanied by
delivery of the mortgaged thing, transfers the title and ownership thereof to the mortgage
creditor, such transfer is not absolute but constitutes a mere security for the payment of the
mortgage debt, the transfer in question becoming null and void from the time the mortgage
debtor complies with his obligation to pay his debt.
In the case of Noble vs. Ft. Smith Wholesale Grocery Co. (127 Pac., 14, 17; 34 Okl., 662; 46 L.
R. A. [N.S.], 455), cited in Words and Phrases, second series, vol. 4, p. 978, the following
appears:
A "transfer" is the act by which owner of a thing delivers it to another with the intent of
passing the rights which he has in it to the latter, and a chattel mortgage is not within the
meaning of such term.
Therefore, the chattel mortgage is not the transfer referred to in section 35 of Act No. 1459
commonly known as the Corporation law, which transfer should be entered and noted upon the
books of a corporation in order to be valid, and which, as has already been said, means the
absolute and unconditional conveyance of the title and ownership of a share of stock.
If, in accordance with said section 35 of the Corporation Law, only the transfer or absolute
conveyance of the ownership of the title to a share need be entered and noted upon the books of
the corporation in order that such transfer may ba valid, therefore, inasmuch as a chattel
mortgage of the aforesaid title is not a complete and absolute alienation of the dominion and
ownership thereof, its entry and notation upon the books of the corporation is not necessary
requisite to its validity.
The second question to decide is whether or not the defendant entity, Erma, Inc., had knowledge
of the execution of the deed Exhibit A, dated March 25, 1930, wherein the defendant Carlos G.
Ceron states that the transfer to him by Enrique Monserrat of 600 shares of common stock of the
Manila Yellow Taxicab Co., Inc., covered by certificate No. 7, was only for the usufruct thereof,
reserving to the assignor the right to vote said share and binding himself not to alienate nor
encumber them.
The evidence shows that when Matute as president of Erma, Inc., went to the office of the
Manila Yellow Taxicab Co., Inc., at Mabini Street, manila, on February 20, 1931, to examine the
Stock and Transfer Book of the said corporation, for the purpose of ascertaining the actual status
of Carlos G. Ceron's shares of stock, Ceron as secretary of said corporation and in charge of said
stock book, showed it to him, and Matute found nothing but that the shares in question were
recorded therein in the name of said Carlos G. Ceron, free from all liens and encumbrances and
no reference made to the Exhibit A. the defendant, Carlos G. Ceron himself, testified that when
he mortgaged his shares, he said nothing to Erma, Inc., about the existence of the deed, Exhibit
A, for fear he might not succeed in obtaining the loan he applied for, with the said shares as
security, and that the notation of Exhibit A in question appearing in the books of the corporation
was place there only on May 5, 1931, the same date on which the 600 common shares were to
have been sold at public auction, together with the preferred shares, which were delivered to the
sheriff for that purpose by Erma, Inc., in view of Carlos G. Ceron's default in the payment of the
loan secured by them. From the time said shares of stocks in question were mortgaged by Carlos
G. Ceron on February 26, 1931, the corresponding certificate has been in possession of the
defendant entity, Erma, Inc., without any notation thereon relative to the deed Exhibit A. It is
obvious, therefore, that the defendant entity Erma, Inc., as a conditional purchaser of the shares
of stock in question given as security for the payment of his credit, acquired in good faith Carlos
G. Ceron's right and title to the 600 common shares of stock evidenced by certificate No. 7 of the
Manila Yellow Taxicab Co., Inc., and as such conditional purchaser in good faith, it is entitled to
the protection of the law.
In view of the foregoing considerations, we are of the opinion and so hold that, inasmuch as
section 35 of the Corporation Law does not require the notation upon the books of a corporation
of transactions relating to its shares, except the transfer of possession and ownership thereof, as a
necessary requisite to the validity of such transfer, the notation upon the aforesaid books of the
corporation, of a chattel mortgage constituted on the shares of stock in question is not necessary
to its validity.
Wherefore, the judgment appealed from is hereby reversed and the defendants are absolved from
the complaint herein which is dismissed with costs against the appellee. So ordered.


MONSERRAT v CERAN
FACTS:
Enrique Monserrat was the president and manager of the Manila Yellow Taxicab Co., Inc. and
the owner of 1,200 shares of stock. In consideration for the financial aid extended to him by Carlos
G. Ceron, Monserrat assigned to the former the usufruct of of his shares. Said assignment only
gave the transferee the right to enjoy, during his lifetime the profits, and in no way can he dispose of
the said shares. Thus, Stock certificate no. 7 was issued in the name of Ceron. Thereafter, the
transfer was recorded on the Stock and Transfer book of the corp wherein the annotation was later
added.
Ceron thereafter mortgaged some shares of stocks to Eduardo Matute, president of Erma
corp., including the 600 shares of stocks earlier mentioned. Ceron endorsed to Matute the certificate
of stock, when Ceron mortgaged the stocks, he did not inform Matute of the annotation.
ISSUE:
Whether or not it is necessary to enter upon the books of the corporation a mortgage
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constituted on common shares of stock in order that such mortgage may be valid and may have
force and effect as against third persons.
HELD:
The SC held that Sec. 35 of the Corp Law does not require any entry except of transfers of
shares of stock in order that such transfers may be valid as against third persons.
The transfer contemplated in the Corp Law does not include a mortgage since what the word
transfer means in Sec. 35 is an absolute conveyance of the ownership of the title to a share.