CASE DIGEST : CABANAS vs PILAPIL

G.R. No. L-25843 July 25, 1974  MELCHORA CABANAS, plaintiff-appellee,  vs. FRANCISCO PILAPIL, defendant-appellant.

FACTS: The insured, Florentino Pilapil had a child, Millian Pilapil, with a married woman, the plaintiff, Melchora Cabanas. She was ten years old at the time the complaint was filed on October 10, 1964. The defendant, Francisco Pilapil, is the brother of the deceased. The deceased insured himself and instituted as beneficiary, his child, with his brother to act as trustee during her minority. Upon his death, the proceeds were paid to him. Hence this complaint by the mother, with whom the child is living, seeking the delivery of such sum. She filed the bond required by the Civil Code. Defendant would justify his claim to the retention of the amount in question by invoking the terms of the insurance policy.


Issue: WON the mother is the rightful trustee for the minor beneficiary


Held: on Articles 320 and 321 of the Civil Code. The former provides: "The father, or in his absence the mother, is the legal administrator of the property pertaining to the child under parental authority. The property which the unemancipated child has acquired or may acquire with his work or industry, or by any lucrative title, belongs to the child in ownership, and in usufruct to the father or mother under whom he is under parental authority and whose company he lives.


With the added circumstance that the child stays with the mother, not the uncle, without any evidence of lack of maternal care, the decision arrived at can stand the test of the strictest scrutiny. It is further fortified by the assumption, both logical and natural, that infidelity to the trust imposed by the deceased is much less in the case of a mother than in the case of an uncle