350 Phil. 197
PUNO, J.:
This petition
for certiorari and prohibition[1] seeks to nullify the April 30, 1996
Decision[2] and the August 28, 1996 Resolution[3] of the National Labor Relations
Commission (Fourth Division) declaring illegal the dismissal of Jessielyn
Villaflor and holding Cebu Filveneer Corporation and Carlo Cordaro solidarily
liable for separation pay, backwages, moral damages and attorney's fees.
On November 16,
1991, the private respondent was hired as chief accountant of petitioner Cebu
Filveneer Corporation. Ms. Rhodora M.
Guillermo served as her accounting clerk. The top executives of petitioner corporation were Italians: Mr. Carlo Cordaro, President; Mr. John
Chapman Kun, General Manager; and, Mr. Renato Marinoni, Production Manager.
On January 21,
1992, Mr. Kun informed Mr. Cordaro of his desire to resign as general manager
effective March 1, 1992. He requested
for the liquidation of his investment in the company in the sum of P125,000.00.
On February 7,
1992, Mr. Kun secured one blank check and blank check voucher from Ms.
Guillermo. Ms. Guillermo failed to
immediately inform the private respondent of the blank check and voucher taken
by Mr. Kun. Private respondent,
however, noticed the missing check voucher on February 10, 1992. She asked Ms. Guillermo about the check
voucher and was told that it was with Mr. Kun. Mr. Kun was able to prepare the check in the amount of P125,000.00,
had it signed by Mr. Marinoni and encashed on February 12, 1992.
Private
respondent learned of Mr. Kun's act and forthwith informed Mr. Cordaro who was
then in Italy. Mr. Cordaro suspended
Mr. Kun and designated Mr. Marinoni and the private complainant as responsible
persons for the company funds. He also
directed the private complainant to assist the company lawyer in filing a
criminal case against Mr. Kun. On her
part, the private complainant wrote to the PNB MEPZ Branch demanding the return
of the encashed check.
On February 15,
1992, Mr. Marinoni confronted the private respondent and charged her with
complicity in Mr. Kun's irregular disbursement of company funds. On February 17, 1992, the private respondent
reported for work late and was prevented entry by the security guards. A Restriction Order has been issued against
her by Mr. Marinoni upon authority of Mr. Cordaro. Mr. Marinoni also caused the forcible opening of private
respondent's table and the vault inside her office. The private respondent reported the incident to the MEPZ PNP
Station.
On February 18,
1992, the private respondent complained to the MEPZ Labor Relations
Officer. The next day, Mr. Marinoni
issued a memorandum suspending the private respondent for thirty (30) days
without pay effective February 17, 1992 for failure to report to office for
half a day. On February 19, 1992, the
private respondent filed a case against the petitioners for illegal dismissal.[4] On February 20, 1992, Mr. Marinoni
issued another memorandum preventively suspending her for thirty (30) days
effective the next day pending investigation on her involvement in the
unauthorized encashment by Mr. Kun of company funds. The petitioner also published a newspaper advertisement of its
need for an accountant.
On March 5,
1992, Atty. Julius Neri notified the private respondent that her investigation
would start March 12, 1992. Private
respondent failed to attend the investigation so it was reset to March 28, 1992. On said date, the private respondent
appeared thru Atty. Godofredo Parawan, Jr. who objected to the conduct of the
investigation on the ground that his client had already filed a complaint for
illegal dismissal with the labor arbiter. Nonetheless, Atty. Neri proceeded with the investigation ex parte. On April 6, 1992, on the basis of Atty.
Neri's recommended action, petitioner dismissed the private respondent on two
grounds: (1) failure to report the
blank check and voucher which Mr. Kun secured from Ms. Guillermo; and (2)
overpaying herself P7,000.00 as 13th month pay for the year 1991.[5]
On November 22,
1994, Labor Arbiter Ernesto F. Carreon decided in favor of the private
respondent whom he found to have been illegally dismissed. He ordered petitioners to pay solidarily the
private respondent P24,000.00 as separation pay; P265,315.05 as
backwages; P20,000.00 as moral damages and P30,931.50 as
attorney's fees or a total sum of P340,246.55.
Petitioners
appealed to the public respondent NLRC.[6] On April 30, 1996, the public
respondent affirmed the Decision with the modification that from the backwages
of private respondent should be deducted the amount she earned as income during the pendency of the case.
In this
petition, petitioners contend:
"THE RESPONDENT COMMISSION GRAVELY ABUSED ITS DISCRETION AMOUNTING TO LACK OF JURISDICTION IN FINDING THAT THERE WAS ILLEGAL DISMISSAL FOR WHICH PRIVATE RESPONDENT SHOULD BE ENTITLED TO SEPARATION PAY, BACKWAGES, MORAL DAMAGES AND ATTORNEY'S FEES, DESPITE THE CLEAR PRESENCE OF BREACH OF TRUST, GROSS NEGLECT AND ACTS INIMICAL TO THE CORPORATION.
EVEN ASSUMING ARGUENDO THAT THERE WAS AN ILLEGAL DISMISSAL, THE RESPONDENT COMMISSION COMMITTED GRAVE ABUSE OF DISCRETION AMOUNTING TO LACK OF JURISDICTION IN FAILING TO EXCLUDE THE PERIOD THAT PRIVATE RESPONDENT RESIGNED FROM CATTLEYA TRAVEL TO STAY IN THE UNITED STATES IN ORDER TO TAKE CARE OF HER PARENTS. MOREOVER, THE RULING OF ILLEGAL DISMISSAL WOULD NOT WARRANT THE PAYMENT OF SEPARATION PAY AND MORAL DAMAGES CONSIDERING THAT THE PRIVATE COMPLAINANT CANNOT BE ENTIRELY DECLARED WITHOUT FAULT.
THE RESPONDENT COMMISSION GRAVELY ABUSED ITS DISCRETION IN MAKING PETITIONER CORDARO SOLIDARILY LIABLE WITH THE PETITIONER CORPORATION."
We affirm with
modification.
We uphold the
ruling of the public respondent that petitioners have no ground to dismiss the
private respondent for breach of trust or gross negligence. Under Article 282 of the Labor Code, an
employer may terminate an employment for any of the following causes:
"(a) Serious misconduct or willful disobedience by the employee of the lawful orders of his employer or representative in connection with his work;
(b) Gross and habitual neglect by the employee of his duties;
(c) Fraud or willful breach by the employee of the trust reposed in him by his employer or duly authorized representative;
(d) Commission of a crime or offense by the employee against the person of his employer or any immediate member of his family or his duly authorized representative; and
(e) Other causes analogous to the foregoing."
In
labor-management relations, there can be no higher penalty than dismissal from
employment. Dismissal severs
employment ties and could well be the economic death sentence of an employee. Dismissal prejudices the socio-economic well being of the employee's
family and threatens the industrial peace. Due to its far reaching implications, our Labor Code decrees that an
employee cannot be dismissed, except for the most serious causes. The overly concern of our laws for the
welfare of employees is in accord with the social justice philosophy of our
Constitution.
Prescinding from
these premises, petitioners' insistence that they legally dismissed the private
respondent for loss of trust stands on quicksand. At the very most, petitioners were only able to prove that
private respondent failed to inform immediately her superiors of the act of Mr.
Kun in getting a blank check and blank voucher from Ms. Guillermo. The omission of the private respondent can
hardly be described as "willful" to justify her dismissal. For one, the omission did not last for
long. For another, the subsequent
actions of the private respondent upon learning of the encashment of the
unauthorized check by Mr. Kun negate any implication that she willfully or
intentionally defaulted in reporting to prejudice petitioners. Indeed, she reported the matter to
petitioner Cordaro and wrote to the PNB MEPZ Branch to retrieve the encashed
check. A breach is willful if it is
done intentionally, knowingly and purposely. Petitioners merely proved the omission of the private respondent but
there is no evidence whatsoever that it was done intentionally.
Nor are we
prepared to agree with petitioners that the private respondent was grossly or
habitually negligent in the performance of her duties. The records reveal that the private
respondent has not been remiss in the past in the performance of her duties,
hence, she cannot be charged with habitual negligence. We cannot also characterize private
respondent's negligence as gross in character. Gross negligence implies a want
or absence of or failure to exercise slight care or diligence or the entire
absence of care. It evinces a
thoughtless disregard of consequences without exerting any effort to avoid
them.[7] In the case at bar, the evidence
does not show that the private respondent has any reason to distrust Mr.
Kun. Mr. Kun was petitioner's general
manager and appears to have conducted himself well in the performance of his
duties in the past. There was not the
slightest reason to suspect that Mr. Kun would commit any illegal act. At the most, the trust misplaced by the
private respondent constitutes error of judgment but not gross negligence.
Anent
petitioners' claim that the private respondent overstated her 13th month pay,
suffice to quote the findings of the public respondent, viz.:
x x x x
x x x
x x
"On the accusation of gross dishonesty relative to the disbursement by the complainant in her favor of the amount ofP8,000.00 as 13th month pay for the year 1991, the complainant claimed this is part of the compensation package agreed to be granted to her, and this remains unrefuted on record. More telling than this is the fact that the said disbursement had already passed in audit and was not discredited by the company president Mr. Carlo Cordaro. At most, this charge of dishonesty against the complainant is an afterthought resorted to by the respondents to justify their intention to and eventual dismissal of the complainant."[8]
Petitioners'
demand that the backwages should he reduced in view of the time she spent in
the United States deserves scant attention. In Bustamante, et al. vs. NLRC,[9] we held:
x x x x
x x x
x x
"On 21 March 1989, Republic Act No. 6715 took effect, amending the Labor Code. Article 279 thereof states in part:
`ART. 279. Security of Tenure.- An employee who is unjustly dismissed
from work shall be entitled to reinstatement without loss of seniority rights
and other privileges and to his full backwages, inclusive of allowances, and
to his other benefits or their monetary equivalent computed from the time his
compensation is withheld from him up to the time of his actual reinstatement.'
(italics supplied)
"In accordance with the above provision, an illegally dismissed employee is entitled to his full backwages from the time his compensation was withheld from him (which, as a rule, is from the time of his illegal dismissal) up to the time of his actual reinstatement. It is true that this Court had ruled in the case of Pines City Educational Center vs. NLRC (G.R. No. 96779, 10 November 1993, 227 SCRA 655) that "in ascertaining the total amount of backwages payable to them (employees), we go back to the rule prior to the Mercury Drug rule that the total amount derived from employment elsewhere by the employee from the date of dismissal up to the date of reinstatement, if any, should be deducted therefrom." The rationale for such ruling was that, the earnings derived elsewhere by the dismissed employee while litigating the legality of his dismissal, should be deducted from the full amount of backwages which the law grants him upon reinstatement, so as not to unduly or unjustly enrich the employee at the expense of the employer.
"The Court deems it appropriate, however, to reconsider such earlier ruling on the computation of backwages as enunciated in said Pines City Educational Center case, by now holding that conformably with the evident legislative intent as expressed in Rep. Act No. 6715, above-quoted, backwages to be awarded to an illegally dismissed employee, should not, as a general rule, be diminished or reduced by the earnings derived by him elsewhere during the period of his illegal dismissal. The underlying reason for this ruling is that the employee, while litigating the legality (illegality) of his dismissal, must still earn a living to support himself and family, while full backwages have to be paid by the employer as part of the price or penalty he has to pay for illegally dismissing his employee. The clear legislative intent of the amendment in Rep. Act No. 6715 is to give more benefits to workers that was previously given them under the Mercury Drug rule or the "deduction of earnings elsewhere" rule. Thus, a closer adherence to the legislative policy behind Rep. Act No. 6715 points to "full backwages" as meaning exactly that, i.e., without deducting from backwages the earnings derived elsewhere by the concerned employee during the period of his illegal dismissal. In other words, the provision calling for "full backwages" to illegally dismissed employees is clear, plain and free from ambiguity and, therefore, must be applied without attempted or strained interpretation. Index animi sermo est."
We hold that
public respondent should not have awarded moral damages and attorney's fees in
favor of the private respondent. To be
sure, the private respondent was negligent when she did not immediately inform
her superior about the blank check and voucher taken by Mr. Kun, although, as aforediscussed, it is not the specie of negligence that will
justify dismissal. Thus, petitioners
should not and cannot be made to pay moral damages and attorney's fees for
their dismissal of the private respondent was not motivated by bad faith or
malice.
Finally, we hold
that Mr. Cordaro cannot be made solidarily liable with petitioner corporation
for the illegal dismissal of the private respondent. In dismissing the private respondent, he acted as President of
petitioner corporation and he did so in good faith. His act as an officer of the corporation cannot result in his
private liability. This is too
fundamental a rule to deserve further discussion.
IN VIEW WHEREOF,
the April 30, 1996 Decision and August 28, 1996 Resolution of the public
respondent are affirmed subject to the modification deleting the award of moral
damages and attorney's fees and absolving petitioner Carlo Cordaro from
liability. No costs.
SO ORDERED.
[1]
Rollo, pp. 5-32.
[2]
Rollo, pp. 36-50.
[3]
Rollo, pp. 148-150.
[4]
NLRC Case No. RAB VII-02-0185-92.
[5]
Allegedly, private respondent only worked for 1 1/2 months in 1991,
hence, she was only entitled to P1,000.00 and not P8,000.00, her
monthly salary.
[6]
NLRC Case No. V-0081-95.
[7]
Citibank, N.A. vs. Gatchalian, 240 SCRA 212.
[8]
NLRC Decision, pp. 12-13.
[9]
G.R. No. 111651, November 28, 1996.