Ablaze Builders, Inc. is engaged in the construction business. It has been the respondent’s practice to hire construction workers, foremen, and other personnel on a per project basis.
Respondents hired petitioners on different dates, positions, and daily salaries and engaged them to work together in its project in Quezon City on June 2013 for the finishing stage.
On February 2014, a project engineer of respondent allegedly told the petitioners that they were already terminated from their employment because there was no more work to be done even f the phase they were working on was not yet completed.
Petitioners filed a complaint for illegal dismissal before the Labor Arbiter. They claimed that they were entitled to their money claims as a result of their dismissal from work. Respondents, on the other hand, alleged that petitioners abandoned their work after the resignation of its project engineer. This caused delay in the completion of the project which prompted respondent to engage the services of other personnel for the completion of the QC project.
The Labor Arbiter dismissed petitioners’ complaint as there was no dismissal, actual or constructive, committed by respondents, since the petitioners have failed to substantiate their allegation of the fact of dismissal. The money claims were also denied.
The NLRC reversed the Labor Arbiter’s decision and ordered respondent to pay petitioners their backwages and separation pay.
The Court of Appeals granted the petition and reversed the NLRC decision. It observed that petitioners failed to establish the fact of their dismissal and that they abandoned their employment.
Issues:
- Whether or not the Court of Appeals gravely abused its discretion when it granted the respondent’s petition for certiorari despite the belated filing of their motion for reconsideration of the NLRC 24 July 2015 decision;
- Whether or not the Court of Appeals gravely erred in annulling the decision of the NLRC finding the petitioners to have been illegally dismissed and in effect, reinstating the Labor Arbiter’s decision dismissing the petitioner’s labor complaint.
Ruling:
The petition was denied. The Court reversed and set aside the decision of the Court of Appeals. A new judgment was rendered declaring petitioners’ failure to prove the fact of their dismissal and that the respondent failed to show abandonment on the part of petitioners.
For the procedural issue, the Court of Appeals did not err when it gave due course to respondent’s petition for certiorari.
The 2011 NLRC Rules of Procedure state that a motion for reconsideration must be filed within 10 calendar days from receipt of said decision, otherwise the decision shall become final and executory.
A motion for reconsideration of the NLRC decision must be filed before the remedy of a petition for certiorari may be availed of to enable the commission to pass upon and correct its mistakes without the intervention of the courts. Failure to file a motion for reconsideration of the decision is a procedural defect that generally warrants a dismissal of a petition for certiorari but the Court may decide a case on the merits rather than dismiss it on a technicality.
For the substantial issue, neither illegal dismissal by the employer nor abandonment by employees exists in this case. The rule in labor cases is that they employer has burden of proving that the termination was for a valid and authorized cause. The evidence to prove the fact of dismissal must be clear, positive and convincing.
In cases of illegal dismissal, before the employer must bear the burden of proof to establish that the termination was for a valid or authorized cause, employees must first prove by substantial evidence the fact of their dismissal from service.
There was no ample evidence to establish a prima facie case that petitioners were dismissed from employment. The identity of the project engineer was not revealed. The Court also found petitioners did not abandon their employment.
Abandonment is a matter of intention and cannot lightly be presumed from certain equivocal acts. Two elements must concur in order for an act to constitute abandonment: (1) respondents must provide evidence that petitioners failed to report for work for an unjustifiable reason; and (2) respondents must prove petitioners’ overt acts showing a clear intention to sever their ties with their employer, with the second element as the more determinative factor, and being manifested by some overt acts.
The mere absence or failure to report for work, even after notice to return, does not necessarily amount to abandonment.
