[No. 12579. July 27, 1918.

GREGORIO JIMENEZ, plaintiff and appellee, vs. PEDRO

RABOT, NICOLASA JIMENEZ and her husband, EMILIO
RODRIGUEZ, defendants. PEDRO RABOT, appellant.

1. SALE OP LAND; POWER OF ATTORNEY; SPECIFIC

DESCRIPTION OP PROPERTY UNNECESSARY.—
Where the owner of real property desires to confer upon
an attorney in fact authority to sell the same, it is
necessary that the authority should be expressed in
writing; but it is not necessary that the property to be sold
should be precisely described. It is sufficient if the
authority is so expressed as to determine without doubt
the limits of the agent's authority.

2. ID.; ID.; ID.; CASE AT. BAR.—The plaintiff, being the

owner of three parcels of land, left the same in the care of
his sister as his agent and went to live in another
province. While so absent, he wrote her to sell one of his
parcels and to send him the money. The sister found a
purchaser and sold one of the parcels but failed to forward
the proceeds to her brother. Afterwards the plaintiff
returned and instituted an action to recover the parcel
which had been sold. Held: That the authority to sell was
sufficient and that the plaintiff could not recover.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Court of First Instance of

Pangasinan. Llorente, J.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
Antonio Bengson for appellant.
Jose Rivera for appellee.

STREET, J.;

This action was instituted by the plaintiff, Gregorio

Jimenez, to recover f rom the defendant, Pedro Rabot, a
parcel of land situated in the municipality of Alaminos, in
the Province of Pangrasinan, and described in the
complaint as follows:

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 "Approximate area of three hectares; bounded on the
north and west with land of Pedro Reynoso; on the south
with land, of Nicolasa Jimenez; and on the east with land
of Calixta Apostol before, at present with that of Juan
379

VOL. 38, JULY 27, 1918 379

Jimenez vs. Rabot.

Montemayor and Simon del .Barrio. It is situated in

Dinmayat Tancaran, barrio of Alos of this same
municipality of Alaminos, Pangasinan."
From a judgment rendered in favor of the plaintiff,
Pedro Rabot has appealed; but his codefendants, Nicolasa
Jimenez and her husband, who were cited by the defendant
for the purpose of holding her liable upon her warranty in
case of his eviction, have not appealed.
It is admitted that the parcel of land in question,
together with two other parcels in the same locality
originally belonged to the plaintiff, having been assigned to
him as one of the heirs in the division of the estate of his
father. It further appears that while Gregorio was staying
at Vigan, in the Province of Ilocos Sur, during the year­
1911, his property in Alaminos was confided by him to the
care of his elder sister Nicolasa Jimenez. On February 7 of
that year he wrote this sister a letter from. Vigan in which
he informed her that he was pressed for money and
requested her to sell one of his parcels of land and send
him the money in order that he might pay his debts. This
letter contains no description of the land to be sold other
than is indicated in the words "one of my parcels of land"
("uno de mis terrenos").
Acting upon this letter Nicolasa approached the def
endant Pedro Rabot, and the latter agreed to buy the parcel
in question for the sum of P500. Two hundred and fifty
pesos were paid at once, with the understanding that a
deed of conveyance would be executed when the balance
should be paid. Nicolasa admits having received this
payment of P250 at the time stated; but there is no
evidence that she sent any of it to her brother.
About one year later Gregorio came down to Alaminos
and demanded that his sister should surrender this piece of
land to him, it being then in her possession. She ref used
upon some pretext or other to do so; and as a result
Gregorio, in conjunction with others of his brothers.and
sisters, whose properties were also in the hands of

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 Nicolasa, instituted an action in the Court of First Instance
for the
380

380 PHILIPPINE REPORTS ANNOTATED

Jimenez vs. Rabot.

purpose of recovering their land from her control. This

action was decided favorably to the plaintiffs upon August
12, 1913; and no appeal was taken from the judgment.
Meanwhile, upon May 31,1912, Nicolasa Jimenez
executed and delivered to Pedro Rabot a deed purporting to
convey to him the parcel of land which is the subject of this
controversy. The deed recites that the sale was made in
consideration of the sum of P500, the payment of which is
acknowledged. Pedro Rabot went into possession, and the
property was found in his hands at the time when final
judgment wa£ entered in favor of the plaintiffs in the
action above mentioned. It will thus be seen that Pedro
Rabot acquired possession under the deed from Nicolasa
during the pendency of the litigation in which she was
defendant; but it does not positively appear that he was at
the time cognizant of that circumstance.
In considering the questions presented by this appeal
one or two preliminary observations may be made. The first
is that, as a matter of formality, a power of attorney to
convey real property ought to appear in a public document,
just as any other instrument intended to transmit or
convey an interest in such property ought to appear in a
public document. (Art. 1280, Civil Code.) But inasmuch as
it is an established doctrine that a private document is
competent to create, transmit, modify, or extinguish a right
in real property (Thunga Chui vs. Que Bentec, 2 Phil. Rep.,
561; Couto Soriano vs. Cortes, 8 Phil. Rep., 459), it follows
that a power of attorney to convey such property, even
though in the form of a private document, will operate with
effect. Again, supposing that the letter contained adequate
authority for Nicolasa to sell the property in question, her
action in conveying the property in her own name, without
showing the capacity in which she acted, was doubtless
irregular. Nevertheless, such deed would in any event
operate to bind her brother, the plaintiff, in its character as
a contract (Lyon vs. Pollock, 99 U. S., 668; 25 L. ed.,­265),
and supposing that the authority was sufficient, he could
be com­

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 381

VOL. 38, JULY 27, 1918 381

Jimenez vs. Rabot.

pelled by a proper judicial proceeding to execute a

document to carry such contract into effect. (Art. 1279,
Civil Code.)
The principal question. for consideration therefore in the
end resolves itself into this, whether the authority
conferred on Nicolasa by the letter of February 7, 1911, was
sufficient to' enable her to bind her brother. The only
provisions of law bearing on this point are contained in
article 1713 of the Civil Code and in section 335 of the Code
of Civil Procedure. Article 1713 of the Civil Code requires
that the authority to alienate land shall be contained in an
express mandate; while subsection 5 of section 335 of the
Code of Civil Procedure says that the authority of the agent
must be in writing and subscribed by the party to be
charged. We are of the opinion that the authority expressed
in the letter is a sufficient compliance with both
requirements.
It has been urged here that in order for the authority to
be sufficient under section 335 of the Code of Civil
Procedure the authorization must contain a particular
description of the property which the agent is to be
permitted to sell. There is no such requirement in
subsection 5 of section 335; and we do not believe that it
would be legitimate to read such a requirement into it. The
purpose in giving a power of attorney is to substitute the
mind and hand of the agent for the mind and hand of the
principal; and if the character and extent of the power is so
far defined as to leave no doubt as to the limits within
which the agent is authorized to act, and he acts within
those limits, the principal cannot question the validity of
his act. It is not necessary that the particular act to be
accomplished should be predestinated by the language of
the power. The question to be answered always, after the
power has been exercised, is rather this: Was the act which
the agent performed within the scope of his authority? In
the case before us, if the question is asked whether the act
performed by Nicolasa Jimenez was within the scope of the
authority which had been conferred upon her, the answer
must be obviously in the affirmative.
382

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 382 PHILIPPINE REPORTS ANNOTATED
Jimenez vs. Rabot.

'lt should not escape observation that the problem with

which we are here concerned relates to the sufficiency of
the power of attorney under subsection 5 of section 335 of
the Code of Civil Procedure and not to the sufficiency of the
note or memorandum of the contract, or agreement of sale,
required by the same subsection, in connection with the
first paragraph of the same section. 'lt is well settled in the
jurisprudence of England and the United States that when
the owner, or his agent, comes to make a contract to sell, or
a conveyance to effect a transfer, there must be a
description of the property which is the subject of the sale
or conveyance. This is necessary of course to define the
object of the contract. (Brockway vs. Frost, 40 Minn., 155;
Carr vs. Passaic Land etc. Co., 19 N. J. Eq., 424; Lippincott
vs. Bridgewater, 55 N. J. Eq., 208; Craig vs. Zelian, 137
Cal., 105; 20 Cyc., 271.)
The general rule here applicable is that the description
must be sufficiently definite to identify the land either from
the recitals of the contract or deed or from external facts
referred to in the document, thereby enabling one to
determine the identity of the land and if the description is
uncertain on its face or is shown to be applicable with equal
plausibility to more than one tract, it is insufficient. The
principle embodied in these decisions is not, in our opinion,
applicable to the present case, which relates to the
sufficiency of the authorization, not to the sufficiency of the
contract or conveyance. It is unquestionable that the deed
which Nicolasa executed contains a proper description of
the property which she purported to convey.
There is ample authority to the effect that a person may
by a general power of attorney authorize an agent to sell
"all" the land possessed by the principal, or all that he
possesses in a particular city, county, or state. (Roper vs.
McPadden, 48 Cal., 346; Rownd vs. Davidson, 113 La.,
1047; Carson vs. Ray, 52 N. C., 609; 78 Am. Dec., 267; 31
Cyc., 1229.) It is also held that where a person authorizes
an agent to sell a farm ("my farm") in a certain county,
383

VOL. 38, JULY 29, 1918 383

Government of the Philippine Islands vs. Avtta.

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 this is sufficient, if it be shown that such party has only
one farm in that county. (Marriner vs. Dennison, 78 Cal.,
202.) In Linton vs. Moorhead (209 Pa. St, 646), the power
authorized the agent to sell or convey "any or all tracts,
lots, or parcels" of land belonging to the plaintiff. It was
held that this was adequate. In Lyon vs. Pollock (99 U. S.,
668), the owner in effect authorized an agent to sell
everything he had in San Antonio, Texas. The authority
was held sufficient. In Linan vs. Puno (31 Phil. Rep., 259),
the authority granted was to the effect that the agent
might administer "the interests" possessed by the principal
in the municipality of Tarlac and to that end he was
authorized to purchase, sell, collect, and pay, etc. It was
held that this was a sufficient power.
In the present case the agent was given the power to sell
either of the parcels of land belonging to the plaintiff. We
can see no reason why the performance of an act within the
scope of this authority should not bind the plaintiff to the
same extent as if he had given the agent authority to sell
"any or all" and she had conveyed only one'.
From what has been said it is evident that the lower
court should have absolved the defendant Pedro Rabot f
rom the complaint. Judgment will accordingly be reversed,
without any express adjudication of costs of this instance.
So ordered.

Torres, Johnson, Malcolm, Avancena, and Fisher, JJ.,

concur.

Judgment reversed.

_______________

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