DIGEST | Hyatt Taxi vs. Catinoy G.R. No. 143204 (June 26, 2001)
termination by employer; labor standards
Catinoy was not allowed to work even after his preventive suspension.Catinoy filed a complaint for illegal suspension, and thereafter amended it to constructive dismissal.
Facts: Catinoy was a taxi driver of Hyatt Taxi Services, Inc. He is also a member and officer of Hyatt Taxi Employees Association. One day he found out that his desk was forcibly opened and found out that it was the acting union president, Saturnino, who opened it to retrieve some documents particularly the list of union members. An argument began that ended in blows where Catinoy was injured so he filed a criminal complaint for physical injuries against Saturnino (1ST CASE). The union asked the company to suspend them both for fighting and a memo was issued. It said that company rules and the union’s by laws had been violated so they were put on suspension for 30 days.
Catinoy, aggrieved by the preventive suspension since he was not the aggressor, filed a complaint for illegal suspension (2ND CASE), unpaid wages, and damages against both the association-union and management.
After 30 days of suspension, he reported for work, but he was not allowed to because of the criminal complaint and illegal suspension cases he filed. Since there was no response from Respondent company, complainant decided to amend his complaint to include constructive dismissal as an additional cause of action since he was not allowed to resume his employment after the lapse of his preventive suspension.
The LA ruled that there was illegal preventive suspension and constructive dismissal.
NLRC affirmed it but did not award back wages because there was no concrete showing of illegal dismissal and it was only constructive illegal dismissal.
The CA reversed it and ruled that there was illegal dismissal and awarded full back wages.
Issue: WON there was constructive dismissal? (YES)
Ruling: The factual findings of the Labor Arbiter, which the NLRC initially adopted, show that respondent was not taken back by petitioner after the 30-day suspension period that petitioner imposed on respondent had lapsed. Clearly, constructive dismissal had already set in when the suspension went beyond the maximum period allowed by law. Section 4, Rule XIV, Book V of the Omnibus Rules provides that preventive suspension cannot be more than the maximum period of 30 days. Hence, we have ruled that after the 30-day period of suspension, the employee must be reinstated to his former position because suspension beyond this maximum period amounts to constructive dismissal.
Hyatt’s contention: Alleges that it was Catinoy who went AWOL and who refused to resume his work because he could not account for union funds.
Held: Both the Labor Arbiter and the NLRC rejected petitioner's claims. We affirm the rejection. It bears stressing that in illegal dismissal cases, it is the employer who has the burden of proof.
Since Hyatt claims that Catinoy abandoned his work, Hyatt has to establish the concurrence of the following: (1) the employee's intention to abandon employment and (2) overt acts from which such intention may be inferred—as when the employee shows no desire to resume work. Hyatt failed to make out its case of abandonment. There were no overt acts unerringly pointing to the fact that Catinoy had no intention of returning to work anymore. Also, the fact that Catinoy filed a complaint against his employer within a reasonable period of time belies abandonment.
Constructive dismissal does not always involve forthright dismissal or diminution in rank, compensation, benefit and privileges. There may be constructive dismissal if an act of clear discrimination, insensibility, or disdain by an employer becomes so unbearable on the part of the employee that it could foreclose any choice by him except to forego his continued employment.
Here, what made it impossible or unacceptable for Catinoy to resume work was Hyatt’s insistence that Catinoy first desist from filing his criminal complaint against the acting president of the union and to withdraw his complaint for illegal suspension against them before he could be allowed to return to work. Catinoy refused and amended his complaint to include constructive dismissal. Catinoy’s refusal to yield to petitioner's conditioned offer to take him back is understandable for he has every right not to bargain away his right to prosecute his complaints in exchange for the employment to which he was in the first place rightfully entitled.
From the time that petitioner failed to recall respondent to work after the expiration of the suspension period, taken together with petitioner's precondition that respondent withdraw the complaints against the acting president of the union and against petitioner itself, respondent's security of tenure was already undermined by petitioner. Petitioner's actions undoubtedly constitute constructive dismissal.