OWWA V. CHAVEZ (REMEDIAL)

Respondents prayed for the issuance of a WRIT OF PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION to restrain petitioners from:

1. implementing its organizational structure as approved by the OWWA Board of Trustees in its 9 January 2004 Resolution; and
2. advertising and proceeding with the recruitment and placement of new employees under the new organizational structure.

RTC granted respondents' prayer for writ of preliminary injunction, which the CA appeared, finding that respondents possess a clear and legal right to the issuance of the writ.

Section 1, Rule 58 of the Rules of Court, defines a PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION as an order at any stage of an action prior to the judgment or final order requiring a party or a court, an agency, or a person to refrain from a particular act or acts.

To be entitled to an injunctive relief, petitioner must show, inter alia, the existence of a clear and unmistakable right and an urgent and paramount necessity for the writ to prevent serious damage. the rule is, the matter of the issuance of a writ is addressed to the sound discretion of the trial court, unless the court commits grave abuse of discretion.

More significantly, a preliminary injunction is merely a provisional remedy, an adjunct to the main case subject to the latter's outcome, the sole objective of which is to preserve the status quo until the trial court hears fully the merits of the case. The status quo should be that existing at the time of the filing of the case. The status quo usually preserved by a preliminary injunction is the last actual peaceable and uncontested status which preceded the actual controversy. The status quo ante litem is ineluctably, the state of affairs which is existing at the time of the filing of the case. Indubitably, the trial court must not make use of its injunctive power to alter such status.

We hold that the RTC, in granting the assailed writ of preliminary injunction, committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction. In the case at bar, the RTC did not maintain the status quo when it issued the writ of preliminary injunction. Rather, it effectively restored the situation prior to the status quo, in effect, disposing the issue of the main case without trial on the merits. The RTC forgot that what is imperative in preliminary injunction cases is that the writ cannot be effectuated to establish new relations between the parties.

This Court in lifting the therein assailed writ, underscored the legal proscription which states that courts should avoid issuing a writ of preliminary injunction which would in effect dispose of the main case without trial.

As has been reiterated, injunction is not a remedy to protect or enforce contingent, abstract, or future rights; it will not issue to protect a right not in esse and which may never arise, or to restrain an action which did not give rise to a cause of action.

A writ of preliminary injunction being an extraordinary event, one deemed as a strong arm of equity or a transcendental remedy,. it must be granted only in the face of actual and existing substantial rights. In the absence of the same, and where facts are shown to be wanting in bringing the matter within the conditions for its issuance, the ancillary writ must be struck down for having been rendered in grave abuse of discretion.