Emergency ceremony

TThis is a case involving marriage in “articulo mortis” where one of the parties is at the point of death, after living as husband and wife without being legally married yet. Usually the marriage ceremony here is done in a hurry due to emergency. So certain steps in the ceremony are sometimes omitted and some documents are not duly accomplished like the signing of the marriage contract, its registration with the Civil Registrar and the affidavit of the priest on why the marriage has no marriage license. In such cases, will the marriage be voided? This is answered in this case of Vince and Patricia.

Long before and during World War II, Vince and Patricia lived together as husband and wife without being married. They acquired properties but had no children although Patricia had a sister Jena. During the liberation of Manila, Patricia became seriously ill. Two ladies in the service of God, Sisters Carmina and Juliet, came to know of Patricia’s condition, so they visited her and persuaded her to go to confession. They fetched a Catholic priest, Fr. Melvin, who learned that Patricia was cohabiting with Vince without the benefit of marriage. So he asked both to ratify their union according to the rites of the Church and both agreed. Thus Fr. Melvin heard the confession of the bed-ridden Patricia, gave her Holy Communion, administered the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, and then solemnized their marriage in articulo mortis, with Sisters Carmina and Juliet acting as sponsors or witnesses.

While Patricia initially recovered from her sickness, she eventually died almost a year thereafter. She was interred in the city’s public cemetery with Fr. Melvin performing the burial ceremonies. Vince thus assumed sole ownership and administration of their properties as sole surviving heir.

Six years later however, the grandchildren of Jena, Andy and Lupe, filed a complaint to compel Vince to render an accounting and to deliver to them the properties left by the deceased Patricia. They claimed that as grandchildren of Patricia’s sister, they were the only surviving forced heirs of Patricia. Vince opposed the complaint setting up his rights as widower. The trial court ruled in favor of Andy and Lupe but on appeal to the Court of Appeals (CA), said decision was reversed. The CA ruled that Vince and Patricia had been validly married in articulo mortis by Fr. Melvin, so Vince, as the widower, has a better right to the properties of Patricia.

Andy and Lupe still questioned the CA decision before the Supreme Court (SC) contending that no marriage contract was signed and executed by Vince and Patricia and there are no copies of the marriage certificate on file with the Local Civil Registrar, thus said marriage was not registered in the Record of Marriages. The priest also failed to file the affidavit declaring that the marriage was in articulo mortis, which is required for the validity of the marriage without a marriage license.

The Supreme Court however ruled that the signing of the marriage contract is merely a formal requirement of evidentiary value, and its omission does not nullify the marriage. Failure to sign the marriage contract is not a ground for annulment of marriage as long as a marriage ceremony has taken place where the parties with legal capacity to contract marriage declare in the presence of the person solemnizing the marriage and of two witnesses of legal age that they take each other as husband and wife. The failure of the priest to make an affidavit of marriage in articulo mortis and to file it does not render the marriage voidable. It would not be fair to the wedded couple to annul their marriage because of the priest’s omission especially when it has been caused by the emergency and prevailing disorder during the liberation.

So Vince has better rights to the estate of Patricia than Andy and Lupe, the grandchildren of Jena and sister of Patricia (De Loria vs. Felix, G.R. L-9005, June 30, 1958)

*      *      *

Email: [email protected]