FACTS: Rivera
was employed by Genesis as a bus conductor in June 2002. Moises is Genesis’
president and general manager.
In his Position Paper before the Labor Arbiter, Rivera
acknowledged that he was dismissed by Genesis on account of a discrepancy in
the amount he declared on bus ticket receipts. He alleged that on June 10,
2010, he received a Memorandum giving him 24 hours to explain why he should not
be sanctioned for reporting and remitting the amount of P198 instead of the
admittedly correct amount of P394 worth of bus ticket receipts. He responded
that it was an honest mistake, which he was unable to correct "because the
bus encountered mechanical problems.
According to Genesis’ inspector Villaseran he conducted a
"man to man" inspection on the tickets held by the passengers on
board Bus No. 8286 who had transferred from Bus No. 1820 in San Fernando,
Pampanga. (Bus No. 1820 broke down.) In the course of his inspection, he
noticed that Ticket No. 723374 VA had a written corrected amount of P394.
However, the amount marked by perforations made on the ticket, which was the
amount originally indicated by the bus conductor, was only P198. Upon inquiring
with the passenger holding the ticket, Villaseran found out that the passenger
paid P500 to Rivera, who gave her change in the amount of P106. Upon
verification, it was found that Rivera only remitted P198.
On July 20, 2010, Genesis served on Rivera a written notice
informing him that a hearing of his case was set on July 23, 2010. Despite his
explanations, Rivera's services were terminated through a written notice dated
July 30, 2010. Contending that this termination was arbitrary and not based on
just causes for terminating employment, he filed the Complaint for illegal
dismissal, which is subject of this Petition.
Respondents
defense is Rivera’s act of serious misconduct, fraud, and willful breach of trust
justifying his dismissal.
Labor
Arbiter has agreed with respondents. Dismissed Rivera’s complaint.
National Labor Relations Commission affirmed LA. Denied
Rivera’s MR.
Under Rule 65, the Court of Appeals sustained LA and NLRC
decisions and denied Rivera’s MR.
ISSUES: Whether
or not Rivera was dismissed for just cause.
Whether or not Moises is personally liable.
HELD: Laws on labor
are pieces of social legislation. They have been adopted pursuant to the
constitutional recognition of "labor as a primary social economic
force" and to the constitutional mandates for the state to "protect
the rights of workers and promote their welfare" and for Congress to
"give highest priority to the enactment of measures that protect and
enhance the right of all the people to human dignity, [and] reduce social,
economic, and political inequalities."
They are means for effecting social justice, i.e., the
"humanization of laws and the equalization of social and economic forces
by the State so that justice in the rational and objectively secular conception
may at least be approximated."
Article XIII, Section 3 of the 1987 Constitution guarantees
the right of workers to security of tenure. "One's employment, profession,
trade or calling is a 'property right,'" of which a worker may be deprived
only upon compliance with due process requirements:
It is the policy of the state to assure the right of
workers to "security of tenure" (Article XIII, Sec. 3 of the New
Constitution, Section 9, Article II of the 1973 Constitution). The guarantee is
an act of social justice. When a person has no property, his job may possibly
be his only possession or means of livelihood. Therefore, he should be
protected against any arbitrary deprivation of his job. LC 280 has construed
security of tenure as meaning that "the employer shall not terminate the
services of an employee except for a just cause or when authorized by" the
code. Dismissal is not justified for being arbitrary where the workers were
denied due process and a clear denial of due process, or constitutional right
must be safeguarded against at all times.
Conformably, liberal construction of Labor Code provisions
in favor of workers is stipulated by LC 4: Art. 4. Construction in favor of
labor. All doubts in the implementation and interpretation of the provisions of
this Code, including its implementing rules and regulations, shall be resolved
in favor of labor.
No serious
misconduct. It is not enough for an employee to be found to have engaged in
improper or wrongful conduct. To justify termination of employment, misconduct
must be so severe as to make it evident that no other penalty but the
termination of the employee's livelihood is viable.
Misconduct is defined as the "transgression of some
established and definite rule of action, a forbidden act, a dereliction of
duty, willful in character, and implies wrongful intent and not mere error in
judgment." For serious misconduct to justify dismissal, the following
requisites must be present: (a) it must
be serious; (b) it must relate to the performance of the employee's duties;
and (c) it must show that the employee
has become unfit to continue working for the employer. (Yabut v. Manila
Electric Co.)
No wilfull breach of
trust. Among the just causes for termination is the employer's loss of
trust and confidence in its employee. Article 296 (c) (formerly Article 282
[c]) of the Labor Code provides that an employer may terminate the services of
an employee for fraud or willful breach of the trust reposed in him. But in
order for the said cause to be properly invoked, certain requirements must be
complied with[,] namely[:] (1) the employee concerned must be holding a
position of trust and confidence and (2) there must be an act that would
justify the loss of trust and confidence.
2 classes of positions of trust:
1.
Managerial employees whose primary duty consists of the
management of the establishment in which they are employed or of a department
or a subdivision thereof, and to other officers or members of the managerial
staff;
2.
Fiduciary
rank-and-file employees, such as cashiers, auditors, property custodians, or
those who, in the normal exercise of their functions, regularly handle
significant amounts of money or property. These employees, though
rank-and-file, are routinely charged with the care and custody of the
employer's money or property, and are thus classified as occupying positions of
trust and confidence.
The position an employee holds is not the sole criterion.
More important than this formalistic requirement is that loss of trust and
confidence must be justified. As with misconduct as basis for terminating
employment, breach of trust demands that a degree of severity attend the
employee's breach of trust.
For loss of trust and confidence to be a valid ground for
the dismissal of employees, it must be substantial and not arbitrary,
whimsical, capricious or concocted. Irregularities or malpractices should not
be allowed to escape the scrutiny of this Court. Solicitude for the protection
of the rights of the working class [is] of prime importance. Although this is
not [al license to disregard the rights of management, still the Court must be
wary of the ploys of management to get rid of employees it considers as
undesirable. (China City Restaurant Corporation v. NLRC)
Nature of a bus
conductor’s work. The social justice suppositions underlying labor laws
require that the statutory grounds justifying termination of employment should
not be read to justify the view that bus conductors should, in all cases, be
free from any kind of error. Not every improper act should be taken to justify
the termination of employment. Concededly, bus conductors handle money. To this
extent, their work may be analogous to that of tellers, cashiers, and other
similarly situated rank-andfile employees who occupy positions of trust and
confidence.
We take judicial notice of bus conductors' everyday work.
Bus conductors receive, exchange, and keep money paid by passengers by way of
transportation fare. They keep track of payments and make computations down to
the last centavo, literally on their feet while a bus is in transit. Regardless
of whether a bus is driving through awkward spaces—through steep inclines,
rugged roads, or sharp turns—or of whether a bus is packed with standing
passengers, the lonesome task of keeping track of the passengers' payments
falls upon a bus conductor. Thus, while they do handle money, their circumstances
are not at all the same as those of regular cashiers. They have to think
quickly, literally on their feet. Regular cashiers, on the other hand, have the
time and comfort to deliberately and carefully examine the transactions of
their employer. However, handling passengers' fare payments is not their sole
function. Bus conductors assist drivers as they maneuver buses through tight
spaces while they are in transit, depart, or park. They often act as
dispatchers in bus stops and other such places, assist passengers as they
embark and alight, and sometimes even help passengers load and unload goods and
cargo. They manage the available space in a bus and ensure that no space is
wasted as the bus accommodates more passengers. Along with drivers, bus conductors
commit to memory the destination of each passenger so that they can anticipate
their stops. There are several ways to manifest the severity that suffices to
qualify petitioner's alleged misconduct or breach of trust as so grave that
terminating his employment is warranted. It may be through the nature of the
act itself: spanning an entire spectrum between, on one end, an overlooked
error, made entirely in good faith; and, on another end, outright larceny. It
may be through the sheer amount mishandled. It may be through frequency of
acts. It may be through other attendant circumstances, such as attempts to
destroy or conceal records and other evidence, or evidence of a motive to
undermine the business of an employer. We fail to appreciate any of these in
this case.
what is involved is a paltry amount of P196. All that has
been proven is the existence of a discrepancy. No proof has been adduced of
ill-motive or even of gross negligence.
From all indications, petitioner stood charged with a lone, isolated instance
of apparent wrongdoing. The records are bereft of evidence showing a pattern of
discrepancies chargeable against petitioner. Seen in the context of his many
years of service to his employer and in the absence of clear proof showing
otherwise, the presumption should be that he has performed his functions
faithfully and regularly. It can be assumed that he has issued the correct
tickets and given accurate amounts of change to the hundreds or even thousands
of passengers that he encountered throughout his tenure. It is more reasonable
to assume that—except for a single error costing a loss of only P196 —the
company would have earned the correct expected margins per passenger, per trip,
and per bus that it allowed to travel. Absent any other supporting evidence,
the error in a single ticket issued by petitioner can hardly be used to justify
the inference that he has committed serious misconduct or has acted in a manner
that runs afoul of his employer's trust. More so, petitioner cannot be taken to
have engaged in a series of acts evincing a pattern or a design to defraud his
employer. Terminating his employment on these unfounded reasons is manifestly
unjust.
Damages
Petitioner is entitled to:
1.
Full backwages and benefits from the time of his
termination until the finality of this Decision.
2.
Separation pay in the amount of 1 month's salary for
every year of service until the finality of this Decision, with a fraction of a
year of at least 6 months being counted as 1 whole year.
3.
Attorney’s fees in the amount of 10% of total monetary
award, as he was compelled to litigate in order to seek relief for the illegal
and unjust termination of his employment.
No moral or
exemplary damages awarded. "Moral damages are awarded in termination
cases where the employee's dismissal was attended by bad faith, malice or
fraud, or where it constitutes an act oppressive to labor, or where it was done
in a manner contrary to morals, good customs or public policy." Also, to
provide an "example or correction for the public good," exemplary
damages may be awarded. We do not find respondent Genesis to have acted with
such a degree of malice as to act out of a design to oppress petitioner. It
remains that a discrepancy and shortage chargeable to petitioner was uncovered,
although such did not justify a penalty as grave as termination of
employment.
Moises is not
personally liable. A corporation has a personality separate and distinct
from those of the persons composing it. Petitioner has not produced proof to
show that Moises acted in bad faith or with malice as regards the termination
of his employment. Thus, she did not incur any personal liability.
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