Unity Fishing Development Corp. v. Court of Appeals
REITERATIONFacts
The Antecedents: Respondent Dominador Laguin filed a complaint against petitioners Unity Fishing Development Corporation and/or Antonio Dee for illegal dismissal, underpayment of wages, overtime pay, premium pay for holidays and rest days, 13th month pay, service incentive leave pay, separation pay, and moral damages. Procedural History: The Labor Arbiter declared the dismissal illegal and ordered payment of backwages, separation pay, and salary differential. The National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) affirmed this judgment. Petitioners' motion for reconsideration was denied, and they received the resolution on October 6, 1999. Petitioners filed a petition for certiorari with the Court of Appeals on December 6, 1999, which was dismissed for being filed eleven days past its due date. The Court of Appeals denied their motion for reconsideration on July 12, 2000, which they received on August 1, 2000. The Petition: Petitioners filed a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court, invoking the amendment to Section 4, Rule 65 of the Rules of Civil Procedure (A.M. No. 00-2-03-SC), which took effect on September 1, 2000. This amendment provides that the sixty-day period for filing a petition for certiorari is reckoned from the receipt of the order denying the motion for reconsideration. Petitioners argued for the retroactive application of this amendment.
Issue(s)
Whether the amendment to Section 4, Rule 65 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, which provides for a sixty-day period to file a petition for certiorari reckoned from notice of the denial of a motion for reconsideration, should be applied retroactively. Whether the petition for certiorari filed with the Court of Appeals was filed within the reglementary period.
Ruling
The Supreme Court set aside the assailed Resolutions of the Court of Appeals and remanded the case for further proceedings. The petition for certiorari filed with the Court of Appeals was deemed filed within the reglementary period.
Ratio Decidendi
On the retroactivity of procedural laws and the reglementary period for filing a petition for certiorari: The Court reiterated its ruling in Systems Factors Corporation and Modesto Dean vs. NLRC, et al. that the amendment under A.M. No. 00-2-03-SC, which reckons the sixty-day period to file a petition for certiorari from the receipt of the resolution denying the motion for reconsideration, should be deemed applicable. Remedial statutes or statutes relating to remedies or modes of procedure, which do not create new or take away vested rights but only operate in furtherance of the remedy or confirmation of rights already existing, do not fall under the general rule against retroactive operation of statutes. Such procedural laws are retroactive in the sense that they apply to actions pending and undetermined at the time of their passage, and this retroactive application does not violate any vested right. The Court emphasized that no vested right may attach to or arise from procedural laws. This conclusion is consistent with Section 6, Rule 1 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure, which mandates liberal construction to promote the objective of securing a just, speedy, and inexpensive disposition of every action and proceeding. On whether the petition for certiorari was filed within the reglementary period: Applying the amended Section 4, Rule 65, the Court found that petitioners received the NLRC-Resolution denying their motion for reconsideration on October 6, 1999. The petition for certiorari was filed with the Court of Appeals on December 6, 1999. Under the amended rule, the last day for filing should have been December 5, 1999. However, since December 5, 1999, was a Sunday, the reglementary period extended to the next working day, December 6, 1999, pursuant to Rule 22 of the Rules of Civil Procedure. Therefore, the petition filed on December 6, 1999, was within the reglementary period.
Main Doctrine
Procedural laws, including amendments to rules on reglementary periods for filing petitions for certiorari, are generally retroactive and apply to pending actions, as they do not create new or take away vested rights but merely operate in furtherance of a remedy.