JOSE MA. LOCSIN, JESUSA LOCSIN, CONCEPCION LOCSIN, EMMA LOCSIN, ROSARIO LOC­SIN AND TERESITA LOCSIN, PETITIONERS, VS. HON. RAFAEL C. CLIMACO, IN HIS CAPACITY AS DISTRICT JUDGE …

Locsin versus Climaco

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari with preliminary injunction filed by the Locsin family, owners of Hacienda San Vicente in the Silay-Saravia mill district of Negros Occidental, against Judge Rafael C. Climaco of the Court of First Instance of Negros Occidental and the Hawaiian-Philippine Company, the sugar central that had long operated a railway system across their lands. The Locsins sought to annul the orders of the respondent judge that restrained them from obstructing or closing the railroad tracks traversing their hacienda. The case matters because it shows how the Supreme Court treats interlocutory injunctive orders in the middle of a bitter dispute between a sugar mill and its planters over railroad rights of way, and how the Court weighs the equities of preserving the status quo against the proprietary claims of a landowner.

Procedural History

The dispute began in the Court of First Instance of Negros Occidental, where ninety-four sugar planters filed a complaint for injunction against the Central, praying that the Central be restrained from removing its railway system from their lands. The Central answered and filed a third-party complaint against one hundred seventy planters, including the Locsins, seeking in the alternative to compel the grant of railroad rights of way or to be given reasonable time to dismantle the tracks. The trial court issued a writ of preliminary injunction restraining the Central from removing the railway system pending decision of the case. Later, when Jose Ma. Locsin notified the Central that he would obstruct and close his hacienda to railroad traffic and erected posts along the tracks, the Central filed an urgent motion for a writ of preliminary injunction. The trial court granted the writ, restraining all parties, particularly the Locsins, from removing or damaging the railroad lines or hindering their continued use and operation pending final decision. It is this order that the Locsins brought before the Supreme Court by petition for certiorari with preliminary injunction.

Facts

In 1919 the Central entered into identical milling contracts with the sugar planters of the Silay-Saravia mill district, effective for thirty crop years from 1921-1922 to 1951-1952. Under those contracts the Central undertook to construct, maintain and operate a railway system over and across the planters' lands for the transportation of sugar cane, materials and supplies, and the landowners granted corresponding rights of way. In 1920 the Central built railroad tracks on the planters' lands, and one trunk line traverses Hacienda San Vicente, owned by the Locsins. The 1919 contracts expired automatically with the 1951-1952 crop year.

On March 30, 1953 the Central and the Asociacion de Hacenderos de Silay-Saravia, representing the planters, entered into a memorandum agreement for twelve crop years ending with 1963-1964. Paragraph 10 of that agreement provided that the rights of way under the previous milling contract shall be granted for the entire period of the milling contract to be signed, and that the mill shall have two years from the expiration of the contract within which to remove the railroad tracks at its expense, unless prevented by force majeure, after which period the tracks not so removed shall become the absolute property of the planter. The 1953 agreement expired automatically with the 1963-1964 crop year.

Negotiations for a new agreement collapsed, and the planters organized their own mill company, which put up a sugar mill in the district in February 1965. In November 1965 the Central proposed that the rights of way continue pending court resolution, and that if judgment favored the planters it be given one year to remove the rails. When a majority of the planters rejected these proposals, the Central decided to dismantle the railway system and remove the tracks, invoking paragraph 10 of the 1953 agreement. The ninety-four planters then sued for injunction, and the trial court restrained the Central from removing the system. When Jose Ma. Locsin later notified the Central that he would close his hacienda to railroad traffic and erected posts along the tracks, the trial court issued the writ now challenged, restraining the Locsins from obstructing the railroad lines pending final decision.

Issues

• Whether or not the respondent judge acted with grave abuse of discretion in issuing the writ of preliminary injunction restraining the Locsins from obstructing and closing the railroad tracks across their hacienda.
• Whether or not the Locsins are entitled to the dissolution of the writ and to the removal of the railroad tracks from their property.

Applicable Provisions

Paragraph 10 of the 1953 memorandum agreement, quoted in the decision, provides:

Subject to the provisions stated in paragraph 9 of this Agreement, the rights of way availed of by the PARTY OF THE SECOND PART under the previous milling contract between the Mill and the Planter shall be granted to said PARTY OF THE SECOND PART for the entire period of the milling contract to be signed. The PARTY OF THE SECOND PART shall have two (2) years from the expiration of the contract within which to remove the railroad tracks at its expense, unless prevented from so doing by force majeure, and after which period the railroad tracks not so removed shall become the absolute property of the Planter on whose property it is situated. During that period the Planters will be granted the use of said railroad tracks or the remaining portions thereof, free of charge, provided that this does not delay or interrupt the removal of the said tracks by the Mill.

This paragraph is the very provision on which the Central grounded its right to remove the tracks and on which the planters grounded their claim that the tracks had already become their property, and it frames the entire controversy over the writ.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Supreme Court held that the respondent judge did not act with grave abuse of discretion in issuing the writ of preliminary injunction. The trial court was confronted with a situation where the removal of the railway system would affect not only the parties before it but the other planters whose sugar cane was being hauled over the same lines, and the preservation of the status quo pending final decision was precisely the office of a preliminary injunction. The writ did not finally adjudicate the ownership of the tracks; it merely kept the situation stable until the merits could be heard.

On the second issue, the Court held that the Locsins' claim that the tracks had become their property under paragraph 10, and their demand for the removal of the tracks, were matters that had to be resolved in the principal case and not in the ancillary proceeding for injunction. The question of whether the two-year period had expired, and whether the Central had been prevented by force majeure from removing the tracks, were disputed questions of fact and law that the trial court had yet to resolve. The Court therefore declined to substitute its judgment for that of the trial court at that stage, and sustained the writ as a proper measure to preserve the status quo.

Doctrine

A preliminary injunction is an ancillary remedy whose sole purpose is to preserve the status quo pending final judgment; it does not decide the merits and cannot be used to adjudicate ownership or the ultimate rights of the parties. Where the controversy over railroad rights of way and the ownership of tracks under a milling agreement involves disputed questions of fact and law, the trial court does not commit grave abuse of discretion in maintaining the status quo through a preliminary injunction. A party who resorts to certiorari to annul an interlocutory injunctive order must show grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction, not merely an error of judgment. The rights of way and the removal of tracks under paragraph 10 of the 1953 memorandum agreement remain to be determined in the principal case, and the injunctive writ merely holds the situation in place until that determination is made.

Disposition

The Supreme Court dismissed the petition and sustained the writ of preliminary injunction issued by the respondent judge, leaving the merits of the controversy over the railroad tracks to be resolved in the principal case.

Remember This

The single line worth memorizing is that a preliminary injunction preserves the status quo and does not decide the merits, so an interlocutory injunctive order will not be annulled absent grave abuse of discretion. Examiners like to use this case on the nature and purpose of preliminary injunction, on the requisites for certiorari against interlocutory orders, and on the rights of way of sugar centrals under milling agreements.