plant nursery business through sheer hard work flourished and with that, itbecame more and more difficult for petitioner to haul the plants and gardensoil to and from the nursery and the highway with the use of pushcarts. InJanuary, 1984, petitioner was able to buy an owner-type jeep which he coulduse for transporting his plants. However, that jeep could not pass throughthe roadpath and so he approached the servient estate owners andrequested that they sell to him one and one-half (1 1/2) meters of theirproperty to be added to the existing pathway so as to allow passage for hisjeepney. The request was turned down by the two widows and furtherattempts at negotiation proved futile.Petitioner then instituted an action before the Regional Trial Court ofBatangas, to seek the issuance of a writ of easement of a right of way overan additional width of at least two (2) meters over the De Saguns' 405-square-meter parcel of land. During the trial, the attention of the lower courtwas called to the existence of another exit to the highway, only eighty (80)meters away from the dominant estate, hence, dismissing petitioner'scomplaint.On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the trial court andrejected petitioner's claim for an additional easement.ISSUE: Whether or not petitioner is entitled to a widening of an alreadyexisting easement of right-of-way.HELD: The Court finds that petitioner has sufficiently established his claim foran additional easement of right of way, holding that where a private propertyhas no access to a public road, it has the right of easement over adjacentservient estates as a matter of law.Article 651 of the Civil Code provides that "(t)he width of the easement ofright of way shall be that which is sufficient for the needs of the dominantestate, and may accordingly be changed from time to time." This is taken tomean that under the law, it is the needs of the dominant property whichultimately determine the width of the passage. And these needs may varyfrom time to time.When petitioner started out as a plant nursery operator, he and his familycould easily make do with a few pushcarts to tow the plants to the nationalhighway. But the business grew and with it the need for the use of modernmeans of conveyance or transport. Manual hauling of plants and garden soiland use of pushcarts have become extremely cumbersome and physicallytaxing. To force petitioner to leave his jeepney in the highway, exposed tothe elements and to the risk of theft simply because it could not passthrough the improvised pathway, is sheer pigheadedness on the part of theservient estate and can only be counter-productive for all the peopleconcerned. Petitioner should not be denied a passageway wide enough toaccommodate his jeepney since that is a reasonable and necessary aspect ofthe plant nursery business.Inasmuch as the additional one and one-half (1 1/2) meters in the width ofthe pathway will reduce the area of servient estate, and the petitioner hasexpressed willingness to exchange an equivalent portion of his land tocompensate private respondents for their loss, perhaps, it would be well forrespondents to take the offer of petitioner seriously. But unless and until thatoption is considered, the law decrees that petitioner must indemnify theowners of the servient estate including Mamerto Magsino from whoseadjoining lot 1/2 meter was taken to constitute the original path severalyears ago. Since the easement to be established in favor of petitioner is of acontinuous and permanent nature, the indemnity shall consist of the value ofthe land occupied and the amount of the damage caused to the servientestate pursuant to Article 649 of the Civil Code.LAUREANA A. CIDvs. IRENE P. JAVIER, ET AL.G.R. No. L-14116 ; June 30, 1960FACTS : Respondents own a building with windows overlooking the adjacentlot, owned by the petitioners. Allegedly, in 1913 or 1914, before the NewCivil Code took effect, the predecessors-in-interest of the petitioner wereverbally prohibited by the respondent to obstruct view and light. When theCourt of Appeals adjudicated the case, it found out that the two estates arecovered by Original Certificates of Title, both issued by the Register ofDeeds. The court further observed that in both of the title, any annotationdoes not appear in respect to the easement supposedly acquired byprescription which, counting the twenty (20) years from 1913 or 1914, wouldhave already ripened by 1937, date of the decrees of registration.ISSUE: Whether the owners of a building standing on their lot with windowsoverlooking the adjacent lot, had acquired by prescription an enforceableeasement of light and view arising from a verbal prohibition to obstruct suchview and light, to petitioner's predecessor-in-interest as owner of theadjoining lot, both of which lots being covered by Torrens titles.HELD: Inasmuch as the alleged prohibition having been avowedly made in1913 or 1914, before the present Civil Code took effect, the applicable legalprovision is Article 538 of the Spanish Civil Code which provides thatnegative easements are acquired, from the day on which the owner of thedominant estate has, by a formal act, forbidden the owner of the servientestate to perform any act which would be lawful without the easement.The law requires not any form of prohibition, but exacts, in a parentheticalexpression, for emphasis, the doing not only of a specific, particular act, buta formal act. The phrase "formal act" would require not merely any writing,but one executed in due form and/or with solemnity. That this is theintendment of the law although not expressed in exact language is thereason for the clarification made in Article 621 of the new Civil Code whichspecifically requires the prohibition to be in "an instrument acknowledgedbefore a notary public".Easements are in the nature of an encumbrance on the servient estate. Theyconstitute a limitation of the dominical right of the owner of the subjectedproperty. Hence, they can be acquired only by title and by prescription, inthe case of positive easement, only as aresult of some sort ofinvasion,apparent and continuous, of the servient estate. By the same token,negative easements can not be acquired by less formal means. Hence, therequirement that the prohibition (the equivalent of the act of invasion)should be by "a formal act", "an instrument acknowledged before a notarypublic."Conceding arguendo that such an easement has been acquired byprescription which, counting the twenty (20) years from 1913 or 1914, wouldhave already ripened by 1937, it had been cut off or extinguished by theregistration of the servient estate under the Torrens System without theeasement being annotated on the corresponding certificate of title, pursuantto Section 39 of the Land Registration Act.MANUEL SORIANO vs. OSCAR STERNBERGG.R. No. L-15628; November 18, 1920FACTS: The wall of the house of defendant Oscar Sternberg, have fourwindows and a gallery (upper story), two windows, one door and an openingwith wooden lattice (lower story), which is 1 meter and 36 centimeters (1.36m.) distant from the dividing line between the lot on which said buildingstands and the lot of the plaintiff. The building of the defendant has stoodwith the identical openings before mentioned, since the year 1905. Thedefendant claims to have a direct view over plaintiff's lot, and that thewindows and the gallery of plaintiff's edifice have direct views on defendant'slot. In the Torrens titles which both parties have to their respective buildings,there does not appear any easement of view in plaintiff's title, nor any rightto easement in defendant's.The plaintiff then filed an action before the court, to compel the defendant toclose the windows in the wall of his house adjacent to the formers property,because the wall of defendant's house is less than 2 meters from the divisionline. The defendant pleads prescription as his defense. The lower courtagreed with the plaintiff's contention and ordered the windows of thedefendant's house to be closed. Hence, this appeal.ISSUE: Whether or not a right of action to enforce article 582 of the CivilCode may be lost by failure to prosecute within the prescriptive period fixedby the Code of Civil Procedure.HELD: The Court held that the plaintiff right of action under Article 582 of theCivil Code accrued in 1905 when the windows in defendant's house wereopened, and that, in accordance with Chapter III of the Code of CivilProcedure, his action has prescribed. Article 582 of the Civil Code provides:"No windows or balconies or other similar projections which directly overlookthe adjoining property may be opened or built without leaving a distance ofnot less than 2 meters between the wall in which they are built and suchadjoining property.It should first be noted that the defendant in this case has never prohibitedthe plaintiff from building on his, the plaintiff's, own land, any wall that hemay desire to construct. Further, it should be noted that the offending edificeof the defendant was constructed in 1905. This was the year when thedefendant violated the law. This was the date when the cause of actionaccrued. Nevertheless, the windows complained of were permitted to beopen for thirteen years without protest. The plaintiff must, consequently, byreason of his own laches, be considered to have waived any right which hemay have had to compel the windows to be closed. The argument of plaintiffthat it was only in 1917, when he bought the land in question, that thestatute of limitations began to run, is not convincing, for the general rule is,that once the statute begins to run, it never stops, and the transfer of thecause of action does not have the effect of suspending its operation.HIDALGO ENTERPRISES, INC.vs. GUILLERMO BALANDAN, ET AL.G.R. No. L-3422; June 13, 1952FACTS: Petitioner Hidalgo Enterprises, Inc. was the owner of an ice-plantfactory in the City of San Pablo, Laguna, in whose premises were installedtwo tanks full of water, nine feet deep, for cooling purposes of its engine.While the factory compound was surrounded with fence, the tanksthemselves were not provided with any kind of fence or top covers. Theedges of the tanks were barely a foot high from the surface of the ground.Through the wide gate entrance, which is continually open, motor vehicleshauling ice and persons buying said commodity passed, and any one couldeasily enter the said factory, as he pleased. There was no guard assigned onthe gate.At about noon of April 16, 1948, plaintiff's son, Mario Balandan, a boy barely8 years old, while playing with and in company of other boys of his ageentered the factory premises through the gate, to take a bath in one of saidtanks; and while thus bathing, Mario sank to the bottom of the tank, only tobe fished out later, already a cadaver, having been died of "asphyxiasecondary to drowning."The Court of Appeals, and the Court of First Instance of Laguna, took theview that the petitioner maintained an attractive nuisance (the tanks), andneglected to adopt the necessary precautions to avoid accidents to personsentering its premises. It applied the doctrine of attractive nuisance, stated asfollows: One who maintains on his premises dangerous instrumentalities orappliances of a character likely to attract children in play, and who fails toexercise ordinary care to prevent children from playing therewith orresorting thereto, is liable to a child of tender years who is injured thereby,even if the child is technically a trespasser in the premises.The principal reason for the doctrine is that the condition or appliance inquestion although its danger is apparent to those of age, is so enticing oralluring to children of tender years as to induce them to approach, get on or