Vs
Vs
Vs
ESTRADA
71 Phil. 140 (1940)
FACTS
This was originally an action commenced by the plaintiff
(respondent) against the defendant (petitioner) for the purpose of
enforcing a contract entered into on August 9, 1903, by virtue of
which the defendant undertook to pay to the plaintiff a certain debt
which his deceased mother had incurred from the deceased parents of
the said plaintiff more than eighteen years ago. It is submitted
that this debt had already prescribed.
ISSUE
Whether or not this action will prosper, considering that
the debt incurred by the defendant's mother had already prescribed.
HELD
The Supreme Court held that the present action is not
founded on the original obligation contracted by the mother of the
defendant, which had already prescribed, but on that contracted by
the defendant on August 9, 1930, in assuming the obligation which
had already prescribed. The defendant being the only heir of the
original debtor with the right to succeed in her inheritance, that
debt lawfully contracted by his mother, although it lost its
efficacy by prescription, is nevertheless now a moral obligation as
far as he is concerned, a moral obligation which is a sufficient
consideration to create and make effective and demandable the
obligation which he had voluntarily contracted on August 9, 1930.
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