G.R. No. 23810 - Valderrama vs. The North Negros Sugar Co., Inc.

On November 17, 1916 several hacienda owners of Manapla, Occidental Negros entered into a milling contract with Miguel J. Osorio.
Under that contract Osorio agreed to install in Manapla a sugar central of a minimum capacity of 300 tons and the hacienda owners bound themselves to furnish the central with all the cane they might produce in their estates for thirty years.
The North Negros Sugar Co., Inc. later acquired Osorio's rights and interest in the November 17, 1916 milling contract.

On January 29, 1919 Catalino Valderrama executed with the appellant a milling contract containing a clause creating an easement of way seven meters wide for fifty years for construction of a railroad.
On February 1, 1919 Emilio Rodriguez executed a substantially identical milling contract with the appellant containing the same easement clause.
On February 1, 1919 Santos Urra, Ignacio Benito Huarte, Adolfo Huarte, and Pedro Auzmendi executed a like contract; Santos Urra thereafter transferred his interest to Pedro Auzmendi, and Pedro Auzmendi transferred to Lorenzo Echarri.
The milling contracts of Valderrama, Rodriguez, and Urra et al. were identical in material respects to the 1916 contract, except for enumerated new conditions set out in Exhibits A and 1.

Because the Manapla haciendas could not supply sufficient cane to sustain the central, the appellant made additional milling contracts with various hacienda owners of Cadiz, Occidental Negros to obtain more cane.
The plaintiffs alleged that the easement of way established by their contracts was only for transportation through each hacienda of the sugar cane of the owner thereof.
The appellant contended that the easement permitted it to transport, over the railroad passing through the plaintiffs' estates, not only cane grown on those estates but also cane grown by the Cadiz planters.
The plaintiffs in three separate complaints prayed the Court of First Instance of Occidental Negros to ...(Subscriber-Only)

Whether the easement of way granted in the plaintiffs' milling contracts authorized the North Negros Sugar Co., Inc. to transport sugar cane grown on other haciendas (specifically, the planters of Cadiz) over the railroad crossing the plaintiffs' estates.