Short answer. Possibly. Ordinarily a mistake of law is no ground for recovering a payment, but Article 2155 makes an exception: a payment made through a mistake in construing or applying a doubtful or difficult question of law may fall within the rule allowing recovery of what was not due. The question must be genuinely doubtful.
What the law says
Payment by reason of a mistake in the construction or application of a doubtful or difficult question of law may come within the scope of the preceding article.
Civil Code, Article 2155 — Mistake of Law. Read the full provision →
The general bar, and the exception
The usual position is unforgiving: ignorance of the law excuses no one, and a payment made because the payer misread his legal obligations is not normally recoverable. If that were the whole rule, someone who paid under a mistaken view of the law would simply have to live with it. Article 2155 softens the rule for one situation, providing that payment by reason of a mistake in the construction or application of a doubtful or difficult question of law may come within the scope of the preceding article — the rule permitting recovery of what was not due. So a mistake of law is not always fatal to a claim for the money back.
Only a doubtful or difficult question qualifies
The exception is tightly drawn around the words doubtful or difficult. It does not rescue every legal misunderstanding, only a mistake about a point of law that was genuinely unsettled — one on which careful, informed people could honestly have reached different conclusions. A payer who simply failed to know a clear and settled rule, or who could have found the answer with ordinary inquiry, does not come within it. The uncertainty must have been in the law itself, not in the payer's diligence, so the threshold question is whether the point of law was really open at the time he paid.
Recovery of what is not due
Article 2155 does not create a free-standing remedy; it channels the qualifying mistake into the rule on recovering payment of what is not due. That rule allows someone who has paid something he did not owe, by mistake, to get it back from the person who received it — the principle against being unjustly enriched at another's expense. By bringing a mistake on a doubtful question of law within that rule, the article treats the payer as if he had paid under any other recoverable error: the payment was not truly owed, and the law lets him reclaim it rather than leave the recipient enriched by his legal confusion.
What you would need to show
Recovering on this basis turns on two things a court will want established. First, that the legal question was actually doubtful or difficult when the payment was made — not merely that you were mistaken, but that the point was genuinely contestable, which is best shown by how unsettled the law then was. Second, that on the correct view you did not in fact owe what you paid. A payer hoping to rely on Article 2155 should therefore hold on to what shows both the payment and the real state of the law at the time, rather than assume any legal error opens the door.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- Philippine Health Insurance Corporation Regional Office – CARAGA, Johnny Y. Sychua, et al, G.R. No. 230218, July 6, 2021 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Domestic Petroleum Retailer Corporation vs. Manila International Airport Authority, G.R. No. 210641, March 27, 2019 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Spouses Teodorico and Pacita Rosete vs. Felix and/or Marieta Briones, et al, G.R. No. 176121, September 22, 2014 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Philippine National Bank vs. Spouses Cheah Chee Chong and Ofelia Camacho Cheah/Spouses Cheah Chee Chong and Ofelia Camacho Chea vs. Philippine National Bank, G.R. Nos. 170865 / G.R. No. 170892, April 25, 2012 — read the decision on LawPhil →