BACNOTAN CEMENT INDUSTRIES, INC., AND RAFAEL GALVEZ, PETITIONERS-APPELLANTS, VS. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS, HON. FELICIANO BELMONTE AND HON. JOSE P. FLORES, IN THEIR CAPACI…

Bacnotan Cement Industries versus Court of Appeals

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari brought by Bacnotan Cement Industries, Incorporated, as lessee of Rafael Galvez, against the Court of Appeals and two judges of the Court of First Instance of La Union. The petitioners challenged a writ of preliminary and mandatory injunction that ordered Galvez, his assign Bacnotan Cement, and their representatives to stop removing or demolishing a fence on a parcel of land and to restore whatever part of it they had already removed. The case matters to a reviewee because it shows what the Supreme Court does when the principal relief sought has been overtaken by a final and executory judgment in the main case: the petition is dismissed for being moot and academic.

Procedural History

The controversy began in a land registration case before the Court of First Instance of La Union. In that case, the then respondent Judge Jose P. Flores issued a preliminary and mandatory injunction ordering Rafael Galvez, his assign Bacnotan Cement Factories, and their representatives to stop removing or demolishing the fence on the property and to restore whatever part they had removed. The petitioners moved to dissolve the writ, but the motion was denied by Judge Flores's successor, respondent Judge Feliciano Belmonte.

The petitioners then elevated the matter to the Court of Appeals by a petition for certiorari, arguing that the injunction had been issued in excess of jurisdiction and with grave abuse of discretion. The Court of Appeals dismissed their petition. Hence the present proceeding before the Supreme Court, a petition for certiorari to review the decision of the Court of Appeals.

After the briefs were filed, the Supreme Court noted that a long time had elapsed and required the parties to inform it of further developments, so that it could ascertain whether the matter had become moot and academic. Counsel for Bacnotan Cement manifested that they had forwarded the resolution to the corporation because they were no longer its legal counsel. The respondents, through the Solicitor General, then filed a manifestation and motion asking that the petition be dismissed for having become moot and academic.

Facts

Rafael Galvez held a parcel of land under a certificate of title and leased it to Bacnotan Cement. The Republic of the Philippines, however, found that the land lay within the limits of Camp Wallace Military Reservation and had been registered as early as 1906 in favor of the United States Government. On that finding, the Republic filed a motion in the land registration case for the cancellation of Galvez's certificate of title.

It was in that setting that the trial court issued the preliminary and mandatory injunction commanding Bacnotan Cement to restore a fence it had earlier removed from the parcel. The petitioners resisted the writ, failed to have it dissolved, and brought the matter up to the Court of Appeals, which dismissed their petition.

While the petition for certiorari was pending in the Court of Appeals, the Court of First Instance of La Union ruled that the proceedings in the land registration case, as well as the certificate of title issued to Rafael Galvez by virtue of the decree of registration, were null and void, and it ordered the Register of Deeds to cancel that certificate and any certificates issued subsequent to it. Galvez and Bacnotan Cement appealed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the order, finding it in accordance with law and the evidence. The order became final and executory, and a writ of execution was issued.

Issues

• Whether or not the petition for certiorari to review the decision of the Court of Appeals, which upheld the issuance of the preliminary and mandatory injunction, has become moot and academic.
• Whether or not the resolution of the incident on the preliminary injunction would still serve any useful purpose given the final and executory judgment on the merits of the land registration case.

Applicable Provisions

The decision does not quote or construe any statutory provision. Its ruling rests on the procedural consequence of mootness, drawn from the facts recited in the respondents' manifestation and motion, which the Court adopted as the basis for its conclusion.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the suit had become moot and academic. The respondents' manifestation and motion showed that the trial court, in its decision on the merits, had declared the certificate of title null and void, and that this decision had become final and executory. The writ of execution had already been issued to carry out the dispositive portions of the orders and the decision of the Court of Appeals. The Court quoted the respondents' submission that the resolution of the petition, which merely involved the incident on the preliminary injunction, would serve no useful purpose:

It clearly appears therefore that the resolution of the petition in the case at bar, which merely involves the incident on the preliminary injunction issued in Land Registration Case No. N-361, would serve no useful purpose since in its decision on the merits, the trial court has declared O.C. T. No. 0-381 null and void and that decision is now final and executory.

On the second issue, the Court agreed that no useful purpose would be served. The only question left was the propriety of an ancillary writ, the preliminary injunction, while the principal question of ownership and title had already been settled by a final and executory judgment. From the above, the Court concluded that the suit is moot and academic.

Doctrine

A petition for certiorari that assails only an ancillary writ of preliminary injunction becomes moot and academic when the judgment on the merits of the principal case has become final and executory. Once the main controversy is settled by a final judgment, a ruling on the incidental injunction would serve no useful purpose, and the Court will not resolve it. The doctrine is procedural rather than statutory: it follows from the nature of a preliminary injunction as a provisional remedy that exists only to preserve the status quo during the pendency of the principal action, so that when the principal action ends in a final judgment, the incident on the injunction loses its reason for being.

Disposition

The petition for certiorari was dismissed for being moot and academic, with no pronouncement as to costs.

Remember This

The one line to memorize is that a petition questioning only a preliminary injunction is dismissed as moot and academic once the judgment on the merits has become final and executory. Examiners use this case to test mootness and the ancillary character of provisional remedies, especially where a party tries to keep litigating an injunction after the main case has already been decided with finality.