Universal Robina v. Catapang
REITERATIONFacts
The Antecedents: Respondents, employed by petitioner Universal Robina Corporation as farm workers on various dates between 1991 and 1993 under five-month contracts, were informed in 1996 that their contracts would not be renewed. The respondents filed separate complaints for illegal dismissal, reinstatement, backwages, damages, and attorney's fees, which were later consolidated. Procedural History: The Labor Arbiter ruled in favor of the respondents, declaring their dismissal illegal and ordering reinstatement with backwages and attorney's fees. The petitioners appealed to the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC), which affirmed the Labor Arbiter's decision with a modification to the attorney's fees. Subsequently, the petitioners filed a petition for certiorari with the Court of Appeals (CA), which denied the petition. The CA later denied the petitioners' motion for reconsideration and a subsequent motion to resolve the reconsideration. The Petition: The petitioners seek review of the CA's decision, raising four grounds: (1) error in ruling that respondents attained regular employment status after one year; (2) error in ordering payroll reinstatement for 13 respondents despite unavailability of positions; (3) error in failing to resolve the issue of liability for withheld salaries due to delayed reinstatement; and (4) error in not resolving their motion for reconsideration due to a two-day delay caused by an honest mistake. The petition is filed under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court.
Issue(s)
Whether the respondents attained the status of regular employees. Whether the Court of Appeals erred in ruling that despite the unavailability of positions, the respondents should still be reinstated through payroll. Whether the petitioners should be held liable for the alleged withheld salaries of the respondents from the date of the issuance of the writ despite the respondents' belated or non-reinstatement not being attributable to the petitioners. Whether the Court of Appeals should have resolved the petitioners' motion for reconsideration despite the delay in its filing.
Ruling
The petition is denied due course. The Decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
Ratio Decidendi
On the issue of regular employment status: The Court affirmed the CA's ruling that the respondents attained regular employee status. The Court reiterated the test for determining regular employment, which hinges on the reasonable connection between the activity performed by the employee and the employer's usual trade or business, and whether such activity is necessary or desirable. The Court emphasized that performing a job for at least a year, even intermittently, establishes a continuing need for its performance, thus deeming the employment regular. The Court found that URC's practice of repeatedly hiring respondents for the same kind of work over several years, under five-month contracts, was a "convenient subterfuge" to prevent them from acquiring security of tenure. Such contractual arrangements were struck down as contrary to public policy and morals, as they allowed URC to avoid hiring permanent employees and violated the employees' security of tenure. The Court held that the repeated and continuous hiring for the same tasks negated URC's contention that the respondents were hired for specific projects only. On the issue of reinstatement through payroll: The Court upheld the CA's opinion that if actual reinstatement was impossible, payroll reinstatement should have been implemented. The CA reasoned that the petitioners should have at least reinstated the thirteen respondents on the payroll if there were indeed no longer any available positions for which they could be accommodated. This ruling underscores the principle that even when positions are unavailable, the employer still has an obligation to provide some form of reinstatement, such as payroll reinstatement, to acknowledge the employee's status and mitigate damages, especially when the non-reinstatement is not due to the employee's fault. On the issue of liability for withheld salaries: The Court implicitly affirmed the liability for withheld salaries by upholding the CA's decision, which in turn affirmed the LA's orders. The CA had opined that the petitioners should have at least reinstated the thirteen respondents on the payroll if there were no available positions. The failure to do so, and the subsequent delay in reinstatement, was not attributed to the respondents. Therefore, the petitioners were liable for the salaries from the time the writ of execution was issued, as their non-compliance with the reinstatement orders led to the accumulation of withheld wages. The Court's affirmation of the lower tribunals' rulings on backwages and execution of judgment supports this conclusion. On the issue of the CA's resolution of the motion for reconsideration: The Court found that the CA correctly denied the petitioners' motion for reconsideration and subsequent motions. The petitioners received the CA Decision on September 8, 2003, and had until September 23, 2003, to file a motion for reconsideration or a petition for review. Instead, they filed a motion for extension of time to file a motion for reconsideration on September 23, 2003, which is a prohibited pleading under the Rules of Court. This prohibited pleading did not suspend the running of the period to file an appeal. Consequently, the period to file a petition for review with the Supreme Court expired on September 23, 2003. The petitioners' subsequent filing of their motion for reconsideration with the CA on September 25, 2003, was therefore out of time, and the CA's action of merely noting it and later denying it for lack of merit was proper. The Court stressed that the perfection of an appeal within the reglementary period is mandatory and jurisdictional.
Main Doctrine
Fixed-term employment contracts used to circumvent security of tenure are struck down as contrary to public policy. Repeatedly hiring employees for the same tasks for extended periods establishes regular employment by operation of law, regardless of contract stipulations.