G.R. No. L-23685; April 25, 1968
CIRILA EMILIA, plaintiff-appellant, vs. EPIFANIO BADO (Alias Paño), ET AL., defendants-appellees.

FACTS

Plaintiff-appellant Cirila Emilia filed a complaint for injunction with damages on December 12, 1963. She alleged that on or about December 1, 1962, the defendants, acting together, entered her land (Lot 1131 in Iligan City, covered by Torrens Title O-267) and began constructing a house of light materials on a 48-square meter area on its northern boundary bordering Salabao Creek. She claimed this act would cause her great and irreparable injury. The trial court issued a preliminary injunction ex-parte. The defendants moved to dismiss for lack of cause of action, attaching a sketch and affidavit from surveyor Flordelito Aragon to support their claim that the house was being built within defendant Glicerio Bado’s own lot (Lot 2894, covered by Torrens Title O-275) and not on plaintiff’s land. The trial court conducted a summary hearing and, crediting the surveyor’s testimony, found prima facie that the house was on Glicerio Bado’s lot. It held that enjoining construction would deprive Bado of his dominical rights under a subsisting Torrens title, which could only be annulled in a separate proceeding. Consequently, the court dissolved the preliminary injunction and dismissed the complaint.

ISSUE

Whether the remedy of injunction is proper to restrain the defendants from constructing a house on a parcel of land where ownership is disputed, with both parties holding Torrens titles over their respective, adjoining lots.

RULING

No, injunction is not the proper remedy. The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s order dismissing the complaint. The Court held that injunctions are not available to take property out of the possession or control of one party and place it into another’s when title has not been clearly established. Where legal title is disputed and the possessor asserts ownership, as in this case where both parties hold Torrens titles and there is a debatable question on the location of the construction, no injunction can issue to dispossess him. The Court reiterated the doctrine that injunction cannot be granted while the rights between parties are undetermined, except in extraordinary cases of material and irreparable injury not compensable by damages. Furthermore, the special remedy of injunction is not available where there is a plain, speedy, and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law. Here, the plaintiff’s claim of ownership over the disputed portion indicated that the appropriate action was an accion de reivindicacion (action for recovery of ownership), not injunction. The Court also noted that while it could have ordered the amendment of the complaint to convert it into a reivindicatory action, it chose not to due to the voluminous record and procedural confusion, and because a final decision on the validity of Glicerio Bado’s title in pending cadastral proceedings could resolve the controversy. Costs were imposed on the plaintiff-appellant.