CARLOS S. ROSALES, CHARLIE LIM AND ARIEL SATO, PETITIONERS, VS. HON. EDGAR MANILAG, IN HIS CAPACITY AS PRESIDING JUDGE OF BRANCH 33 OF THE REGIONAL TRIAL COURT OF BUTUAN CITY, A…

Rosales versus Manilag

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 brought by Carlos Rosales, Charlie Lim, and Ariel Sato against Judge Edgar Manilag, in his capacity as Presiding Judge of Branch 33 of the Regional Trial Court of Butuan City, and against the private respondent, Marvin Aqua Resources, Incorporated. The petitioners ask the Supreme Court to annul three issuances of the trial court: the order of December 22, 2008 granting a writ of preliminary injunction, the writ itself dated December 23, 2008, and the order of March 25, 2010 directing the full implementation of that writ by removing all structures on the disputed 53.69 square meter stretch of land fronting the private respondent's commercial building. The case matters because it is a compact lesson on the finality of interlocutory orders and on the proper remedy against an order granting a preliminary injunction.

Procedural History

The private respondent filed a complaint for enforcement of an easement of right of way under Article 652 of the Civil Code, with damages and a prayer for a temporary restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction, before Branch 33 of the Regional Trial Court of Butuan City. The trial court issued a temporary restraining order on December 9, 2008, then granted the writ of preliminary injunction on December 22, 2008, upon a bond of 50,000 pesos, and issued the writ on December 23, 2008. The petitioners moved for reconsideration and dissolution of the writ; the trial court denied the motion in an order dated July 3, 2009. The petitioners did not challenge that denial before the Supreme Court. On February 2, 2010, the private respondent moved to fully implement the writ, and on March 25, 2010, the trial court granted the motion and designated another branch sheriff to remove the unauthorized structures. The petitioners then filed before the Supreme Court a petition for certiorari, prohibition, and mandamus with a prayer for a temporary restraining order and injunction. The Supreme Court denied the prayer for a restraining order on August 4, 2011, because consummated acts can no longer be restrained by injunction, the writ having been fully implemented in May 2010.

Facts

The private respondent, Marvin Aqua Resources, Incorporated, owns in fee simple a parcel of land in Butuan City covered by a transfer certificate of title, with an area of 3,528 square meters, which it acquired from the Development Bank of the Philippines. The bank had foreclosed the land as an unredeemed collateral of a certain Alejandro Silaga, who had acquired it from Teodoro Tan, who in turn had bought it from the late Teofilo Santos, Junior, whose heirs are among the defendants below. On this land the private respondent built a two-storey commercial building known as Lynzees. Fronting the building is the disputed land of 53.69 square meters, allegedly used as a sidewalk and intended for a proposed road widening of J. Rosales Avenue.

Without notice to the private respondent, the heirs of Teofilo Santos, Junior, who own the surrounding parcels, leased the disputed land to Richard Young and to the petitioners Charlie Lim and Ariel Sato. Young obtained a building permit for a Mister Donut restaurant, while Lim and Sato obtained permits for D' Agusan Lechon Manok and Park N' Heaven. The entire frontage of the private respondent's land along J. Rosales Avenue was thus blocked by these structures, built and to be built.

The private respondent claimed that the heirs, as the servient estate and as successors of the vendor who sold the land to Teodoro Tan, were bound to grant it an easement of right of way under Article 652 of the Civil Code. The petitioners answered that they own the disputed land and may lease it out, and that two passageways already exist from the private respondent's land to a public highway, so no additional easement may be claimed. The trial court issued a temporary restraining order, then the writ of preliminary injunction, and later the order of March 25, 2010 for its full implementation.

Issues

• Whether or not the order of December 22, 2008 and the writ of preliminary injunction of December 23, 2008 may still be challenged in the petition after the denial of the motion for reconsideration had become final.
• Whether or not the order of March 25, 2010, which merely enforced the earlier writ, may be used to reset the period to challenge the already final order and writ.
• Whether or not the trial judge acted with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction in issuing the assailed order of March 25, 2010.

Applicable Provisions

Article 652 of the Civil Code, invoked by the private respondent as the basis of its complaint, provides:

Whenever a piece of land acquired by sale, exchange or partition, is surrounded by other estates of the vendor, exchanger, or co-owner, he shall be obliged to grant a right of way without indemnity. In case of a simple donation, the donor shall be indemnified by the donee for the establishment of the right of way.

This is the substantive right the private respondent sought to protect by injunction, but the Court did not reach its merits because the procedural question of finality controlled.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the order of December 22, 2008 and the writ of December 23, 2008 could no longer be challenged. The petitioners' motion for reconsideration was denied in the order of July 3, 2009, and that order was never elevated to the Supreme Court, so it became final. The Court restated the elementary rule that a final judgment or order cannot be altered, not even by the highest court of the land, and that judicial error should be corrected through appeals, not through repeated suits on the same claim. What the petitioners should have done was to challenge the order of July 3, 2009, together with the writ, by a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 within the reglementary period. The Court explained that an order granting a preliminary injunction, whether mandatory or prohibitory, is interlocutory and unappealable, but may be challenged by a petition for certiorari under Rule 65.

On the second issue, the Court held that the petition was not proper because the order of March 25, 2010 merely enforced the first two issuances. Since the writ had not been fully implemented, the trial court had to grant the motion for implementation. The petitioners could not use that order to reset anew their period to challenge the already final order and writ.

On the third issue, the Court found no grave abuse of discretion. It defined grave abuse of discretion as a capricious or whimsical exercise of judgment equivalent to lack of jurisdiction, an abuse so patent and gross as to amount to an evasion of a positive duty or a virtual refusal to perform a duty enjoined by law, or to act at all in contemplation of law, as where the power is exercised in an arbitrary and despotic manner by reason of passion and hostility. No such abuse was shown. Having so ruled, the Court found it unnecessary to discuss the merits of the easement, which were beyond the province of the certiorari case.

Doctrine

First, a final judgment or order is immutable and unalterable and may no longer be modified in any respect, except to correct clerical errors or mistakes, and cannot be disturbed even by the Supreme Court. Second, an order granting a preliminary injunction, whether mandatory or prohibitory, is interlocutory and unappealable, but it may be challenged by a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 within the reglementary period. Third, an order that merely implements an earlier final writ does not reopen or reset the period to challenge that writ. Fourth, grave abuse of discretion means a capricious or whimsical exercise of judgment equivalent to lack of jurisdiction, patent and gross enough to amount to an evasion of a positive duty or a refusal to perform a duty enjoined by law.

Disposition

The petition for certiorari was denied, and the order of December 22, 2008, the writ of preliminary injunction of December 23, 2008, and the order of March 25, 2010 of Branch 33 of the Regional Trial Court of Butuan City were affirmed.

Remember This

Memorize this line: an order granting a preliminary injunction is interlocutory and unappealable, so it must be attacked by certiorari under Rule 65 within the reglementary period, and once final it can no longer be altered. Examiners use this case to test finality of interlocutory orders and the rule that an order enforcing a final writ cannot revive a lost remedy.