Limjuco vs Pedro Fragante

TITLE: Limjuco vs. The Estate of Pedro Fragante

CITATION: 45 OG No. 9, p.397

FACTS:

Pedro Fragante, a Filipino citizen at the time of his death, applied for a certificate of public convenience to install and maintain an ice plant in San Juan Rizal.  His intestate estate is financially capable of maintaining the proposed service.  The Public Service Commission issued a certificate of public convenience to Intestate Estate of the deceased, authorizing said Intestate Estate through its special or Judicial Administrator, appointed by the proper court of competent jurisdiction, to maintain and operate the said plant.  Petitioner claims that the granting of certificate applied to the estate is a contravention of law.

ISSUE: Whether or not the estate of Fragante may be extended an artificial judicial personality.

HELD:

The estate of Fragante could be extended an artificial judicial personality because under the Civil Code, “estate of a dead person could be considered as artificial juridical person for the purpose of the settlement and distribution of his properties”.  It should be noted that the exercise of juridical administration includes those rights and fulfillment of obligation of Fragante which survived after his death.  One of those surviving rights involved the pending application for public convenience before the Public Service Commission.

Supreme Court is of the opinion that “for the purposes of the prosecution of said case No. 4572 of the Public Service Commission to its final conclusion, both the personality and citizenship of Pedro O. Fragrante must be deemed extended, within the meaning and intent of the Public Service Act, as amended, in harmony with the constitution: it is so adjudged and decreed”.