G.R. No. 39929. September 14, 1933
AGAPITO RAMOS, PETITIONER, VS. COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF TAYABAS AND LA LAGUNA-TAYABAS BUS COMPANY, RESPONDENTS.
MALCOLM, J.:
one of jurisdiction and has to do with the legal right of a Court of
First Instance to grant an injunction to restrain a party holding a
certificate of public convenience issued by the Public Service
Commission from violating the same, and to proceed to hear and decide
the case.
The petitioner Agapito Ramos and the respondent La
Laguna-Tayabas Bus Company are rival public utility operators in the
Provinces of Laguna and Tayabas. Both are the holders of certificates
of public convenience issued by the Public Service Commission. During
the months of October, November, and December, 1932, and January, 1933,
several complaints were made before the Public Service Commission by La
Laguna-Tayabas Bus Company against Agapito Ramos. It was alleged by the
bus company that Ramos had been operating his public utility in
violation of his certificate of public convenience and of the
regulations of the Public Service Commission by making trips outside of
the hours allotted to him and by dropping or taking passengers at
points not allowed by his certificate. These charges were duly answered
by Ramos. However, they were never brought on for hearing and were
still pending before the commission in May, 1933, when the bus company
instituted an injunction suit before the Court of First Instance of
Tayabas relying in part on the same violations already denounced before
the Public Service Commission and in part on further violations during
the months of January to April, 1933. The complaint asked for the
issuance of an injunction and for damages. A preliminary injunction was
in fact issued.
As is well known, the Judiciary Law, as
supplemented by the Code of Civil Procedure, grants to Courts of First
Instance jurisdiction to issue writs of injunction (Act No. 136, sec.
56; Code of Civil Procedure, sees. 162, et seq.). This
jurisdiction being organic in nature, it could not be diminished by the
Public Utility or Public Service laws, or any other law, and it must be
presumed that no such purpose was intended. As a matter of fact, the
Public Service Commission is a body created to exercise administrative
and quasi-judicial power only. Among other things, the commission is
given power, after hearing, upon notice, by order in writing to perform
certain specified acts including, as we believe, the power by order to
grant certificates of public convenience and to suspend, revoke, or
cancel them. (Public Service Law, No. 3108, sec. 15, as amended.) The
Public Service Law provides that “observance of the orders of the
commission may be enforced by mandamus or injunction in appropriate
cases,” (sec. 30). The reservation of judicial power is further
safeguarded and the relationship between the Public Service Law and the
Judiciary Law is bridged by the provision of the former that “This Act
shall not have the effect to release or waive any right of action by
the commission or by any person for any right, penalty, or forfeiture
which may have arisen or which may arise, under any of the laws of the
Philippine Islands, * * *” (sec. 34).
Heretofore it has been
specifically decided by this court that owners of public utilities
operating under the supervision of the Public Service Commission have
the right to maintain appropriate actions in Courts of First Instance
against other public utilities who have not been authorized to operate
in competition with the complainant. (A. L. Ammen Transportation Co. vs.
Golingco [1922], 43 Phil., 280.) This on the one hand. It has likewise
been expressly decided by this court that a Court of First Instance
lacks jurisdiction to issue an injunction to restrain the Public
Service Commission from enforcing an order. (Iloilo Commercial and Ice
Company vs. Public Service Commission, [1931], 56 Phil., 28.)
This on the other hand. Between the two precedents falls the present
case, which is neither aimed at public utility operators not provided
with certificates of public convenience nor at the Public Service
Commission as a body. What we have here is an order of the commission
which, it is claimed, has been infringed, with the party injured
desiring to obtain his remedy in the courts.
We believe that
it will be to the public interest, and in accordance with the law, to
rule that the violation of proper orders duly made by the Public
Service Commission within the scope of its authority may be restrained
by injunction. Important property rights are involved. A competing
public utility operator is charged with wrongdoing. Damages pile up day
by day as infringement continues. The Public Service Commission has
been afforded an opportunity to give relief and has not done so.
True it is that Courts of First Instance have no general supervisory
power over the Public Service Commission. Just as certainly the courts
possess the power of redress grounded upon illegal encroachment upon
property rights. In this instance, the commission retains jurisdiction
over the complaints which asked that the certificate of public
convenience of the transgressing party be cancelled because of the
continued violation of the same, while the courts retain the
jurisdiction conferred upon them by the higher law to restrain the
guilty party from continuing with his violation of a property right and
to proceed to fix pecuniary damages. Legitimate transportation
operators are entitled to protection both by the Public Service
Commission and by the courts.
Before concluding, it might be
appropriate to add that it seems to have been the practice in Courts of
First Instance to grant injunctions in similar cases as a matter of
course. This tendency was given encouragement recently in the Division
of Three case of Rural Transit Co., Ltd. vs. Emilio Flor, G. R. No. 37451,[1]
not reported, wherein the decision of the Court of First Instance of
Manila enjoining a party from continuing a wrongful and illegal action
and awarding damages to the complaining party, was sanctioned here.
As a result of all the foregoing, we sustain the jurisdiction of the
Court of First Instance of Tayabas, which means the denial of the writ
of prohibition, with costs against the petitioner. So ordered.
Villa-Real, Abad Santos, Hull, and Imperial, JJ., concur.
[1] Page 922, post.