SECOND DIVISION
[G.R. No. 220992. January 27, 2016.]
JASPE LIGHT STEEL INDUSTRIES, INC., ANDRES JASPE, petitioner,vs. RICARDO D. AMADO, respondent.
NOTICE
Sirs/Mesdames :
Please take notice that the Court, Second Division, issued a Resolution dated 27 January 2016 which reads as follows:
"G.R. No. 220992 (JASPE LIGHT STEEL INDUSTRIES, INC., ANDRES JASPE v. RICARDO D. AMADO). — This is a Rule 45 appeal from the December 1, 2014 decision and September 4, 2015 resolution of the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. SP No. 07017 penned by Associate Justice Ma. Luisa C. Quijano-Padilla and concurred in by Associate Justices Ramon Paul L. Hernando and Marie Christine Azcarraga-Jacob.
The case arose from the amended complaint for illegal dismissal, with money claims and damages, filed by the respondent Ricardo Amado (Amado) against the petitioners Jaspe Light Steel Industries, Inc., (company) and its owner, Andres Jaspe (Jaspe). The company, located in Pavia, Iloilo, manufactures/fabricates farm implements.
Amado alleged that the company employed him in 1995 as welder and paid him a certain amount for every item he assembled. He worked from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday to Saturday. As he was related to Jaspe, he and his family were allowed to stay in one of the small houses inside the Jaspe compound.
On November 22, 2009, Jaspe told him that the company no longer needed his services and he and his family had to move out of the Jaspe compound. Amado suspected that his dismissal resulted from an incident which drew the ire of the Jaspe family. It involved Amado's sister Maricar (former company secretary) who had an illicit relationship with Anthony Cortel, a former driver of Jaspe.
The petitioners denied that they dismissed Amado. Jaspe claimed that on several occasions prior to November 22, 2009, he noticed that Amado had been inviting his relatives and friends to drinking sessions at the house he was occupying. The sessions would last up to early mornings and his guests would become drunk and unruly; during one drinking spree, an intoxicated Amado even fired his gun. The incident scared Jaspe's wife and children, prompting Jaspe to tell Amado to vacate the house he occupied with his family. This must have hurt Amado, Jaspe maintained, as he immediately told the company's Asst. Manager that he would no longer finish the task that he was then working on and demanded payment for his services. The petitioners told Amado that they would continue to consider him for whatever "pakyaw" jobs would be available, but he refused to report to work. TAIaHE
In his decision of August 27, 2010, Labor Arbiter Roderick Joseph B. Calanza (LA Calanza) found Amado to have been illegally dismissed and awarded him a total of P225,935.33 in backwages, separation pay in lieu of reinstatement, 13th month pay, service incentive leave pay, moral damages, plus attorney's fees, to be paid solidarily by the company and Jaspe. LA Calanza considered Amado a regular employee who cannot be dismissed without a valid cause and due process.
The petitioners appealed. They also filed a motion to reduce the appeal bond, which the National Labor Relations Commission denied in its order of June 28, 2011. It directed the posting of the balance of the bond within 10 days. In a September 7, 2011 resolution, the NLRC dismissed the appeal for noncompliance with its June 28, 2011 order. The petitioners moved for reconsideration. Thereafter, on December 23, 2011, the NLRC rendered a decision modifying LA Calanza's decision by ordering Amado's reinstatement and upholding the award of backwages, 13th month pay, and service incentive leave pay, and deleting the other awards.
Both parties moved for reconsideration. Amado questioned his reinstatement and the deletion of the separation pay, moral damages, and attorney's fee awards. The petitioners, on the other hand, insisted that Amado had not been illegally dismissed and, therefore, was not entitled to his claims.
In a February 27, 2012 resolution, the NLRC denied both motions: for Amado, on grounds that the motion was one day late and it raised no new arguments or evidence to warrant a reconsideration; and for the petitioners, because their motion was five days late and was their second motion for reconsideration.
Amado sought relief from the NLRC's decision through a Rule 65 petition for certiorari filed with the CA, charging the NLRC with grave abuse of discretion for ordering its reinstatement in lieu of separation pay and for ruling that he is not entitled to moral damages and attorney's fees.
In its assailed decision of December 1, 2014, the CA set aside the NLRC ruling and reinstated that of LA Calanza, but modified it by reducing the award of moral damages from P25,000.00 to P15,000.00 and affirming the NLRC's deletion of attorney's fees. The appellate court concurred with LA Calanza that the circumstances of the case engendered ill feelings and discord between the parties such that it is to their best interests that they part ways. It cited the family misunderstanding between them and the filing of the complaint as factors that strained their relationship.
Also, the CA found in order the award of moral damages to Amado even at a reduced amount, considering his almost 15 years of service to the petitioners and the abrupt and unexpected manner of his dismissal, as well as the loss of his family's shelter, which made him suffer mental anguish, wounded feelings, and social humiliation. The CA however found the deletion of the award of attorney's fees justifiable as it believed that attorney's fees in the concept of damages are not recoverable and that in any case, the deletion of the award of attorney's fees is within the discretion of the NLRC.
The petitioners moved for reconsideration of the CA decision, insisting that (1) the company did not dismiss Amado illegally as he himself refused to continue working; (2) Amado was not directly involved in the supposed family conflict involving his sister cited by him as the cause of his strained relationship with his employer; and (3) under the circumstances, there is no basis for the award of backwages, separation pay, other monetary benefits and moral damages to Amado.
The Petition
The petitioners seek a reversal of the CA judgment before this Court, on grounds that the appellate court erred in (1) reinstating the labor arbiter's decision since Amado was not a regular employee of the company and he had not been dismissed; (2) declaring that Amado's reinstatement is no longer feasible due to strained relationship between the parties; (3) affirming the award to Amado of backwages, separation pay, other monetary benefits and moral damages, despite the absence of substantial evidence to support the award; and (4) making Jaspe solidarily liable with the company for Amado's award.
Our Ruling
We deny the petition outright as the CA committed no reversible error in its assailed judgment. We note that (1) the petitioners abandoned their appeal from the labor arbiter's decision when they failed to comply with the NLRC's order to post the required appeal bond; and (2) in their motion for reconsideration of the CA ruling on Amado's certiorari petition, they kept silent on whether Amado was a regular employee or not and mainly dwelt on the issue of strained relationship between the parties and the non-entitlement of Amado to the monetary awards, including moral damages, because he had not been illegally dismissed.
The foregoing notwithstanding, the CA is correct in reinstating the labor arbiter's decision, considering that substantial evidence shows that in just a span of one day, Amado not only lost his job, but was also thrown out of his lodging, together with his family. Under the circumstances, we do not find it surprising that the CA rejected the petitioners' submission that Amado refused to continue to work for the company and upheld the finding of illegal dismissal in compulsory arbitration.
WHEREFORE, we DENY the petition outright for lack of merit.
SO ORDERED."
Very truly yours,
(SGD.) MA. LOURDES C. PERFECTODivision Clerk of Court