EN BANC
[ G.R. NO. L-37427, June 25, 1974 ]
CHEMPLEX INC. v. RAMON C. PAMATIAN +
CHEMPLEX (PHILIPPINES) INC. AND TOMMY P. S. LIM, PETITIONERS, VS. HON. RAMON C. PAMATIAN, BENIGNO D. LIM, CARMEN L. LIM, AQUILES J. LOPEZ AND SIXTO T. ANTONIO, RESPONDENTS.
D E C I S I O N
In GR.No. L-37427, Chemplex Philippines, Inc. and Tommy P.S. Lim, Petitioners vs. Hon. Ramon C. Pamatian, Benigno D. Lim, Carmen L. Lim, Aquiles J. Lopez and Sixto T. Antonio, Respondents, the COURT, after considering the allegations of the parties in the
voluminous pleadings they have filed and the numerous annexes thereto, as well as the order of the respondent Judge of the Court of First Instance of Rizal (the late Ramon C. Pamatian, who was subsequently appointed Justice of the Court of Appeals), which order, dated August
29,1973, was issued by him after due hearing and reception of evidence concerning the incident for the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction as prayed for by the defendants below, now respondents herein, and is now challenged in the instant petition for certiorari,
RESOLVED to dismiss said petition for lack of merit, there being no showing of grave abuse of discretion, and to lift the restraining order dated September 11, 1973.
Makalintal C.J., Zaldivar, Castro, Fernando, Esguerra, Fernandez and Aquino, JJ., explaining their votes in separate opinions, Castro, J,, concurring in the separate opinion of Makalintal, C.J.; and Makalintal, C.J., and Castro, J., concurring in the separate opinion of Fernandez, J.; Teehankee, Makasiar, Antonio and Munoz Palma, JJ., voted to give due course and to grant the petition, with Teehankee, J., explaining his vote in a separate opinion, concurred in by Makasiar, Antonio and Munoz Palma, JJ.; and Barredo, J, reserved his vote and explained the same in a separate opinion.
The Court further RESOLVED unanimously to direct the respondent Court to act on this case with reasonable dispatch, considering the need for early settlement of the controversy between the parties, and to suggest (with Makalintal, C.J., voting against making such suggestion) to the respondent Court to consider the advisability of a receivership in the case before it.
CONCURRING
MAKALINTAL, CJ.,
I concur fully in the separate opinion of Mr. Justice Fernandez.
Judge Pamatian issued the order now assailed herein after he heard the parties and received relevant evidence bearing on the incident before him, namely, the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction as prayed for by the defendants. He issued the writ on the basis of the facts as found by him, subject of course, as he himself admitted, considering the interlocutory nature of the injunction, to further consideration of the case on the merits after trial. I do not see that his factual findings are arbitrary or unsupported by the evidence. If anything, they are circumspect, reasoned out. and arrived at after serious judicial inquiry.
This Court is not a trier of facts, and it is beyond its function to make its own findings of certain vital facts different from those of the trial court, especially on the basis of the conflicting claims of the parties and without the evidence being properly before it. For this Court to make such factual conclusions is entirely unjustified first, because if material facts are controverted, as in this case, and they are issues being litigated before the lower court, the petition for certiorari would not be in aid of the appellate jurisdiction of this Court; and, secondly, because it preempts the primary function of the lower court, namely, to try the case on the merits, receive all the evidence to be presented by the parties, and only then come to a definite decision, including either the maintenance or the discharge of the preliminary injunction it has issued.
The thousands of pages of pleadings, memoranda, and annexes already before this Court and the countless hours spent in discussing the bare allegations of the parties as to the factual aspects of which the members are in sharp disagreement merely to resolve whether or not to give due course to the petition, demonstrate clearly why this Court, in a case like this, should consider only one question, and no other, namely, did the court below commit a grave abuse of discretion in issuing the order complained of, and should answer that question without searching the pleadings for supposed facts still in dispute and not those set forth in the order itself, and in effect deciding the main case on the merits although it is yet in its preliminary stages and has not entered the period of trial.
Ruiz Castro, J., concurs fully in the above opinion of Chief Justice Q.C. Makalintal and in the separate opinion of Justice E.A. Fernandez,
SEPARATE OPINION:
FERNANDO, J.,
As with my brethren, Justices Teehankee, Barredo, and Fernandez, I would like to say a few words. The basic question, in my opinion, is not whether petitioner Tommy Lim is entitled to a remedy, but even on the assumption that such be the case, one not too difficult to make considering the vigor and learning with which his cause is championed by Attorney Gonzalo W. Gonzales, must it come from this Court? After two protracted hearings and over two thousand pages of pleadings and memoranda, so it was noted by Justice Teehankee, the presentation by distinguished panel of counsel of both parties being exhaustive, and, at times, exhausting, an affirmative answer, for me at least, is not indicated. I shall explain why.
The opening sentence of the then Justice, later Chief Justice, Concepcion, in Aytona v. Castillo,[1] supplies my starting point. Thus: "It is well settled that the granting of writs of prohibition and mandamus [as well as certiorari] is ordinarily within the sound discretion of the courts, to be exercised on equitable principles, * * *"[2] My reading on equitable remedies, admittedly haphazard and unmethodical, as historically conceived and applied in Anglo-American jurisprudence, if I do not misinterpret such illustrious treatise writers as Story[3] Bispham,[4] Pomeroy,[5] and Keeton and Sheridan[6] persuades me that this Court is not called upon to proceed further.
1. It could exercise its discretion thus under the oft-quoted maxim: "He who comes into Equity must come with clean hands." It is, according to Pomeroy, "a universal rule guiding and regulating the action of equity courts in their interposition on behalf of suitors for any and every purpose, and in their administration of any and every species of relief."[7] Chafee, who was not too insistent on such a maxim being rigorously applied, noted that it had its origin in an opinion of an English jurist, Chief Baron Eyre in 1787, of the Exchequer, and not of the Court of Chancery. He did state therein "that a man must come into a Court of Equity with clean hands. * * *"
After a cursory appraisal of the pleadings, such a thought has come to mind. This is not to say that what was said by one party against the other is entitled to credence. Nor is this to prejudge the merits of the controversy, much less to attach blame to either group. It is merely to stress that under such circumstances, it may be more advisable either to allow the lower court to proceed with dispatch or to transfer the forum to the Court of Appeals, which is in a better position to appraise the facts. Nor is this all. There is the belief in certain legal circles that unless a suitor can show indubitable legal rights, the discretion of the judiciary being thus circumscribed, struggles between prototypes of what was referred to by Roosevelt as economic royalists, do not automatically elicit, especially from the higher tribunals, an affirmative response to the plea that they be heard. So I would interpret Radin's Manners and Morals of Business.[8] Even this Court, in Fieldman's Insurance Co., Inc. v. Vda. de Songco,[9] did take note that "the morality of the business world is not the morality of institutions of rectitude like the pulpit and the academe, * * *."[10] Perhaps, that accounts for the need for a theologian like Obenhaus to write Ethics for an Industrial Age.[11] Such a consideration may be peripheral rather than crucial. But for me, they weigh sufficiently to preclude further inquiry by this Court.
2. Even more compelling for me for the result reached is that the certiorari jurisdiction of this Court was precisely expanded to allow a greater freedom as to the controversies deemed sufficiently meritorious for it to rule upon. It does not admit of doubt then that the amount involved in the controversy is hardly decisive. A dispute over a small sum of money, if fraught with implications vital for the state of law, has a more valid claim to its attention. It is not the interest of the parties as such, but the significance it possesses in terms of its doctrinal value, that supplies the criterion. Chafee had occasion to refer to an opinion of Justice Frankfurter which implies that what is decisive is a question of import for public policy presented, not a mere adjudication of adversary rights between the two litigants.[12] At any rate, such a mode of viewing the matter is not likely to be productive of injustice to the main protagonists before us who, considering their economic status, are very likely, to paraphrase that caustic but realistic critic of law and of life, Professor Rodell, to be able to protect themselves in the clinches. Considering that after the time and attention paid to this litigation, there are still aspects that continue to pose serious questions and considering the many other cases involving more important issues not so much of property but of liberty, I do not feel that the Court's discretion should be exercised in favor of petitioners. It was stressed by Justice Laurel, one of the chief architects of the 1935 Constitution, that precisely the minimum appellate jurisdiction of this Tribunal on factual matters was limited to all criminal cases in which the penalty imposed is death or life imprisonment[13] So it is under the present Constitution[14] As he had occasion to point out, the provision adopted was in the nature of a compromise between the view of the first Chairman of the Judiciary Committee in 1934 of the Constitutional Convention, former Justice Norberto Romualdez, then delegate from Leyte, who advocated that the Supreme Court should be a real cour de cassation[15] and the opposite view, likewise firmly held, that it should continue to be an ordinary appellate court of error as was then the practice. Moreover, he said that it is a cause for satisfaction that in thus confining jurisdiction over facts to this Court on matters affecting life and liberty, the Constitutional Convention anticipated a similar controversy between the so-called Hughes and Brandeis views on how certiorari jurisdiction should be exercised when property rights are involved, and deciding correctly in favor of freedom.[16]At any rate, even on the assumption made mention of at the outset, that Tommy Lim is entitled to a remedy, it does not have to come from this Court. The Court of Appeals, as the ultimate trier of facts, may be a better forum.[17]
Hence my vote. I trust that a halt would thus be called to the plethora of words to which of late this Court has been subjected and there be an end, at long last, to the needless luxuriance of language.
[1] L-19313, January 19, 1962, 4 SCRA 1.
[2] Ibid., , 17-18.
[3] Cf. Lyon, Story's Equity Jurisprudence, 14th ed. (1941):'
[4] Bispham's Principles of Equity, 11th ed. (1931).
[5] Pomeroy, Equity Jurisprudence, 5th ed. (1941).
[6] Keeton and Sheridan, Equity (1969).
[7] 2 Pomeroy, op. cit., 91.
[8] Cf. Radin, Manners and Morals of Business (1939).
[9] L-24833, September 23, 1968, 25 SCRA 70.
[10] Ibid., 76.
[11] Cf. Obenhaus, Ethics for an Industrial Age (1965).
[12] Chafee, op. cit.,4.
[13] Cf. Article VIII, Sec. 2, par. 4 of the 1935 Constitution.
[14] Cf Article X, Sec. 5, par. 2(d).
[15] Cf Von Mehren, The Civil Law System, 83-85 (1957).
[16] Cf. St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. US, 298 US 38 (1936).
[17] Cf. Breslin v. Luzon Stevedoring Co., 84 Phil. 618(1949).
Makalintal C.J., Zaldivar, Castro, Fernando, Esguerra, Fernandez and Aquino, JJ., explaining their votes in separate opinions, Castro, J,, concurring in the separate opinion of Makalintal, C.J.; and Makalintal, C.J., and Castro, J., concurring in the separate opinion of Fernandez, J.; Teehankee, Makasiar, Antonio and Munoz Palma, JJ., voted to give due course and to grant the petition, with Teehankee, J., explaining his vote in a separate opinion, concurred in by Makasiar, Antonio and Munoz Palma, JJ.; and Barredo, J, reserved his vote and explained the same in a separate opinion.
The Court further RESOLVED unanimously to direct the respondent Court to act on this case with reasonable dispatch, considering the need for early settlement of the controversy between the parties, and to suggest (with Makalintal, C.J., voting against making such suggestion) to the respondent Court to consider the advisability of a receivership in the case before it.
MAKALINTAL, CJ.,
I concur fully in the separate opinion of Mr. Justice Fernandez.
Judge Pamatian issued the order now assailed herein after he heard the parties and received relevant evidence bearing on the incident before him, namely, the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction as prayed for by the defendants. He issued the writ on the basis of the facts as found by him, subject of course, as he himself admitted, considering the interlocutory nature of the injunction, to further consideration of the case on the merits after trial. I do not see that his factual findings are arbitrary or unsupported by the evidence. If anything, they are circumspect, reasoned out. and arrived at after serious judicial inquiry.
This Court is not a trier of facts, and it is beyond its function to make its own findings of certain vital facts different from those of the trial court, especially on the basis of the conflicting claims of the parties and without the evidence being properly before it. For this Court to make such factual conclusions is entirely unjustified first, because if material facts are controverted, as in this case, and they are issues being litigated before the lower court, the petition for certiorari would not be in aid of the appellate jurisdiction of this Court; and, secondly, because it preempts the primary function of the lower court, namely, to try the case on the merits, receive all the evidence to be presented by the parties, and only then come to a definite decision, including either the maintenance or the discharge of the preliminary injunction it has issued.
The thousands of pages of pleadings, memoranda, and annexes already before this Court and the countless hours spent in discussing the bare allegations of the parties as to the factual aspects of which the members are in sharp disagreement merely to resolve whether or not to give due course to the petition, demonstrate clearly why this Court, in a case like this, should consider only one question, and no other, namely, did the court below commit a grave abuse of discretion in issuing the order complained of, and should answer that question without searching the pleadings for supposed facts still in dispute and not those set forth in the order itself, and in effect deciding the main case on the merits although it is yet in its preliminary stages and has not entered the period of trial.
Ruiz Castro, J., concurs fully in the above opinion of Chief Justice Q.C. Makalintal and in the separate opinion of Justice E.A. Fernandez,
SEPARATE OPINION:
FERNANDO, J.,
As with my brethren, Justices Teehankee, Barredo, and Fernandez, I would like to say a few words. The basic question, in my opinion, is not whether petitioner Tommy Lim is entitled to a remedy, but even on the assumption that such be the case, one not too difficult to make considering the vigor and learning with which his cause is championed by Attorney Gonzalo W. Gonzales, must it come from this Court? After two protracted hearings and over two thousand pages of pleadings and memoranda, so it was noted by Justice Teehankee, the presentation by distinguished panel of counsel of both parties being exhaustive, and, at times, exhausting, an affirmative answer, for me at least, is not indicated. I shall explain why.
The opening sentence of the then Justice, later Chief Justice, Concepcion, in Aytona v. Castillo,[1] supplies my starting point. Thus: "It is well settled that the granting of writs of prohibition and mandamus [as well as certiorari] is ordinarily within the sound discretion of the courts, to be exercised on equitable principles, * * *"[2] My reading on equitable remedies, admittedly haphazard and unmethodical, as historically conceived and applied in Anglo-American jurisprudence, if I do not misinterpret such illustrious treatise writers as Story[3] Bispham,[4] Pomeroy,[5] and Keeton and Sheridan[6] persuades me that this Court is not called upon to proceed further.
1. It could exercise its discretion thus under the oft-quoted maxim: "He who comes into Equity must come with clean hands." It is, according to Pomeroy, "a universal rule guiding and regulating the action of equity courts in their interposition on behalf of suitors for any and every purpose, and in their administration of any and every species of relief."[7] Chafee, who was not too insistent on such a maxim being rigorously applied, noted that it had its origin in an opinion of an English jurist, Chief Baron Eyre in 1787, of the Exchequer, and not of the Court of Chancery. He did state therein "that a man must come into a Court of Equity with clean hands. * * *"
After a cursory appraisal of the pleadings, such a thought has come to mind. This is not to say that what was said by one party against the other is entitled to credence. Nor is this to prejudge the merits of the controversy, much less to attach blame to either group. It is merely to stress that under such circumstances, it may be more advisable either to allow the lower court to proceed with dispatch or to transfer the forum to the Court of Appeals, which is in a better position to appraise the facts. Nor is this all. There is the belief in certain legal circles that unless a suitor can show indubitable legal rights, the discretion of the judiciary being thus circumscribed, struggles between prototypes of what was referred to by Roosevelt as economic royalists, do not automatically elicit, especially from the higher tribunals, an affirmative response to the plea that they be heard. So I would interpret Radin's Manners and Morals of Business.[8] Even this Court, in Fieldman's Insurance Co., Inc. v. Vda. de Songco,[9] did take note that "the morality of the business world is not the morality of institutions of rectitude like the pulpit and the academe, * * *."[10] Perhaps, that accounts for the need for a theologian like Obenhaus to write Ethics for an Industrial Age.[11] Such a consideration may be peripheral rather than crucial. But for me, they weigh sufficiently to preclude further inquiry by this Court.
2. Even more compelling for me for the result reached is that the certiorari jurisdiction of this Court was precisely expanded to allow a greater freedom as to the controversies deemed sufficiently meritorious for it to rule upon. It does not admit of doubt then that the amount involved in the controversy is hardly decisive. A dispute over a small sum of money, if fraught with implications vital for the state of law, has a more valid claim to its attention. It is not the interest of the parties as such, but the significance it possesses in terms of its doctrinal value, that supplies the criterion. Chafee had occasion to refer to an opinion of Justice Frankfurter which implies that what is decisive is a question of import for public policy presented, not a mere adjudication of adversary rights between the two litigants.[12] At any rate, such a mode of viewing the matter is not likely to be productive of injustice to the main protagonists before us who, considering their economic status, are very likely, to paraphrase that caustic but realistic critic of law and of life, Professor Rodell, to be able to protect themselves in the clinches. Considering that after the time and attention paid to this litigation, there are still aspects that continue to pose serious questions and considering the many other cases involving more important issues not so much of property but of liberty, I do not feel that the Court's discretion should be exercised in favor of petitioners. It was stressed by Justice Laurel, one of the chief architects of the 1935 Constitution, that precisely the minimum appellate jurisdiction of this Tribunal on factual matters was limited to all criminal cases in which the penalty imposed is death or life imprisonment[13] So it is under the present Constitution[14] As he had occasion to point out, the provision adopted was in the nature of a compromise between the view of the first Chairman of the Judiciary Committee in 1934 of the Constitutional Convention, former Justice Norberto Romualdez, then delegate from Leyte, who advocated that the Supreme Court should be a real cour de cassation[15] and the opposite view, likewise firmly held, that it should continue to be an ordinary appellate court of error as was then the practice. Moreover, he said that it is a cause for satisfaction that in thus confining jurisdiction over facts to this Court on matters affecting life and liberty, the Constitutional Convention anticipated a similar controversy between the so-called Hughes and Brandeis views on how certiorari jurisdiction should be exercised when property rights are involved, and deciding correctly in favor of freedom.[16]At any rate, even on the assumption made mention of at the outset, that Tommy Lim is entitled to a remedy, it does not have to come from this Court. The Court of Appeals, as the ultimate trier of facts, may be a better forum.[17]
Hence my vote. I trust that a halt would thus be called to the plethora of words to which of late this Court has been subjected and there be an end, at long last, to the needless luxuriance of language.
[1] L-19313, January 19, 1962, 4 SCRA 1.
[2] Ibid., , 17-18.
[3] Cf. Lyon, Story's Equity Jurisprudence, 14th ed. (1941):'
[4] Bispham's Principles of Equity, 11th ed. (1931).
[5] Pomeroy, Equity Jurisprudence, 5th ed. (1941).
[6] Keeton and Sheridan, Equity (1969).
[7] 2 Pomeroy, op. cit., 91.
[8] Cf. Radin, Manners and Morals of Business (1939).
[9] L-24833, September 23, 1968, 25 SCRA 70.
[10] Ibid., 76.
[11] Cf. Obenhaus, Ethics for an Industrial Age (1965).
[12] Chafee, op. cit.,4.
[13] Cf. Article VIII, Sec. 2, par. 4 of the 1935 Constitution.
[14] Cf Article X, Sec. 5, par. 2(d).
[15] Cf Von Mehren, The Civil Law System, 83-85 (1957).
[16] Cf. St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. US, 298 US 38 (1936).
[17] Cf. Breslin v. Luzon Stevedoring Co., 84 Phil. 618(1949).