HENDERSON TRIPPE SHIPPING CO., INC., & TEH AN SHIPPING COMPANY, PETITIONERS, VS. HON. LUIS B. REYES, JUDGE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF MANILA AND FAR EAST INTERNATIONAL IMPORT-EX…

By resolution of April 16, 1953, the parties hereto were required or
permitted to state within ten days from notice their reasons, if any, why this
litigation should not be declared moot. So far, no one submitted any
comment.

Briefly outlined, the case arose from a suit pending before Hon. Luis B.
Reyes, Judge of the Manila Court of First Instance (Civil Case No. 31042)
wherein Far East International Import and Export Corporation sued Henderson
Trippe Shipping Co. Inc., et al., to compel the fatter to sign and deliver to it
the bills of lading for plaintiff’s scrap iron loaded aboard defendants’ S. S.
Liberal, which had left the Port of Manila for Japan, and to recover
damages.

Besides other defenses, the answer explained that no bills had been issued
because Far East International Import and Export Corporation had failed to pay
the freight, demurrage and other charges for which it was
accountable.

Soon thereafter, in an urgent petition, Far East represented
to the Court that the scrap iron shipment had arrived in Japan, that for lack of
bills of lading, it was impounded in a bonded warehouse and will probably be
sold at public auction in Osaka, Japan, unless the bills of lading were promptly
issued to plaintiff, which Would furnish a bond to answer for defendants’
freightage and other charges. Far East therefore prayed that upon submission of
a bond in the amount fixed by the Court, the defendant Henderson Trippe be
directed and authorized to sign and issue the aforesaid shipping documents. Over
the defendants’ objection, the petition was granted in an order dated December
24, 1956, fixing a bond in the amount of P50,000.00.

After denial of their motion to reconsider, petitioners commenced here the
instant proceedings for certiorari, to annul the aforesaid order and for
preliminary injunction to restrain its enforcement in the meantime.

Our resolution of January 7, 1957, requiring respondents to answer,
authorized the issuance of a preliminary injunction “upon petitioners’ filing a
bond of P10,000.00.” However, such bond was never filed, and the injunction never issued. There is
no reason to believe that the lower court’s order to deliver the bills of lading
has not been carried out.

On the other hand, on January 18, 1957, respondents informed this Court that
the scrap iron subject-matter of the litigation, then on deposit in an Osaka
warehouse, was scheduled to be sold at public auction on the same day, and
petitioned this Court to suspend such auction sale until further orders; but
this Court denied the request upon the obvious ground that it ‘had no power to
enforce the requested directive in a foreign country. Again, there is no reason
to believe that the sale has not been carried out as scheduled.

So, as the main object of the instant litigation was to avoid delivery to the
Far East of the bills of lading, and the urgency or importance of such delivery
has disappeared with the sale of the scrap iron, it may now be considered moot
or academic,^[1] the parties having the
opportunity to ventilate, in Civil Case No. 31042 of the Manila Court of First
Instance, the remaining question of damages, if any, arising from the issuance
of the disputed order.

Case dismissed. No costs.

Paras, C.J., Montemayor, Reyes, A., Bautista Angelo, Labrador,
Concepcion, Reyes, J.B.L., Endencia, and Felix, JJ.,
concur.

---

^[1]La Carlota v. Camon, 63 Phil. 1051; Cruz
v. Martin, 75. 11.