ZUNECA PHARMACEUTICAL, AKRAM ARAIN AND/OR VENUS ARAIN, M.D. DBA ZUNECA PHARMACEUTICAL, PETITIONERS, VS. NATRAPHARM, INC., RESPONDENT, G.R. No. 197802, November 11, 2015 - The Lawyer's Post.
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Rule 58 of the Rules of Court provides for both preliminary and permanent injunction. Section 1, Rule 58 provides for the definition of preliminary injunction:
SECTION 1. Preliminary injunction defined; classes. — A preliminary injunction is an order granted at any stage of an action or proceeding prior to the judgment or final order, requiring a party or a court, agency or a person to refrain from a particular act or acts. It may also require the performance of a particular act or acts, in which case it shall be known as a preliminary mandatory injunction. (Emphasis supplied)
On the other hand, Section 9 of the same Rule defines a permanent injunction in this wise:
SEC. 9. When final injunction granted. — If after the trial of the action it appears that the applicant is entitled to have the act or acts complained of permanently enjoined, the court shall grant a final injunction perpetually restraining the party or person enjoined from the commission or continuance of the act or acts or confirming the preliminary mandatory injunction. (Emphasis supplied)
A writ of preliminary injunction is generally based solely on initial and incomplete evidence.[1] The evidence submitted during the hearing on an application for a writ of preliminary injunction is not conclusive or complete for only a sampling is needed to give the trial court an idea of the justification for the preliminary injunction pending the decision of the case on the merits.[2] As such, the findings of fact and opinion of a court when issuing the writ of preliminary injunction are interlocutory in nature and made even before the trial on the merits is commenced or terminated.[3]
By contrast a permanent injunction, based on Section 9, Rule 58 of the Rules of Court, forms part of the judgment on the merits and it can only be properly ordered only on final judgment. A permanent injunction may thus be granted after a trial or hearing on the merits of the case and a decree granting or refusing an injunction should not be entered until after a hearing on the merits where a verified answer containing denials is filed or where no answer is required, or a rule to show cause is equivalent to an answer[4].
As such a preliminary injunction, like any preliminary writ and any interlocutory order, cannot survive the main case of which it is an incident; because an ancillary writ of preliminary injunction loses its force and effect after the decision in the main petition.[5]
In Casilan v. Ybañez,[6] this Court stated:
As things stand now, this Court can no longer interfere with the preliminary injunctions issued by the Leyte court in its cases Nos. 2985 and 2990, because such preliminary writs have already been vacated, being superseded and replaced by the permanent injunction ordered in the decision on the merits rendered on 21 March 1962. And as to the permanent injunction, no action can be taken thereon without reviewing the judgment on the merits, such injunction being but a consequence of the pronouncement that the credits of Tiongson and Montilla are entitled to priority over that of Casilan. Since the court below had the power and right to determine such question of preference, its judgment is not without, nor in excess of, jurisdiction; and even assuming that its findings are not correct, they would, at most, constitute errors of law, and not abuses of discretion, correctible by certiorari. The obvious remedy for petitioner Casilan was a timely appeal from the judgment on the merits to the Court of Appeals, the amount involved being less than P200,000. But the judgment has become final and unappealable and can not be set aside through certiorari proceedings. (Emphasis supplied)
Here, this Court is being asked to determine whether the CA erred by issuing a permanent injunction in a case which questioned the propriety of the denial of an ancillary writ. But with the RTC’s December 2, 2011 Decision on the case for “Injunction, Trademark Infringement, Damages and Destruction,” the issues raised in the instant petition have been rendered moot and academic. We note that the case brought to the CA on a petition for certiorari merely involved the RTC’s denial of respondent’s application for a writ of preliminary injunction, a mere ancillary writ. Since a decision on the merits has already been rendered and which includes in its disposition a permanent injunction, the proper remedy is an appeal[7] from the decision in the main case.
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