FEDERICO MANSAL, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. P. P. GOCHECO LUMBER CO., DEFENDANT AND APPELLEE.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Court of First Instance of Manila
dismissing plaintiff-appellant’s action for compensation for injuries received
by him while working as a laborer in defendant’s lumber yard. The appeal was
made to the Court of Appeals, but in view of the fact that only questions of law
are raised it was certified to us.

Plaintiff-appellant suffered injuries in the middle finger of his right hand
while stacking lumber in the lumber yard of the defendant. As a member of a
group of laborers doing that job for the defendant company, he was not employed
directly by the company, but worked under a contractor by the name of Pablo
Manansala who, in representation of the group of laborers, contracted the
stacking of lumber in the lumber yard at P4.00 per thousand board feet,
collected the price of the stacking and distributed it among the laborers.
Manansala and his group did not work for the defendant alone; they also did
similar work for other lumber yards. Defendant company was not also obliged to
employ Pablo Manansala and his group everytime that it had lumber to be stacked
up, but could call other contractors or groups of laborers. The defense of the
defendant, which was sustained by the court a quo, is that
plaintiff-appellant was a purely casual laborer, employed by what is known in
law as an independent contractor, Pablo Manansala, who had direction and control
of plaintiff-appellant without interference on the part of the defendant. Said
the court:

“Ademas de lo arriba expuesto, la demandada niega en absoluto tener relacion
contractual con dicho demandante, ni relacion directa eon el mismo, pues nunca
ha empleado al demandante en los trabajos de la compania, porque esta ha entrado
en contrato dbn Pablo Manansala bajo ciertas consideraciones, pero nunca convino
con el demandante. sobre los trabajos aqui en cuestion. En una palabra, la
demandada nunca ha tenido autoridad ni control sobre el demandante, ni sobre sus
trabajos, porque estos fueron contratados bajo el sistema de pakiaw, or
por board feet, entre la parte demandada y el contratista Pablo
Manansala, y este a su vez utilizo a los obreros que el necesitaba bajo su
responsabilidad y control, no habiendo nunca estos obreros sido contratados como
trabajadores de la demandada. El demandante tiene el caracter de trabajador
casual y depende de el el trabajar o no trabajar.”

The Workmen’s Compensation Act, under which plaintiff-appellant’s action is
based, provides that when an employee suffers personal injury from any accident
arising out of and in the course of his employment * * * his employer shall pay
compensation * * *.” (Sec. 2, Act No. 3428 as amended by Rep. Act No. 772.) The
same law gives the following definition of a laborer or employee.

” ‘Laborer’ is used as a synonym of ‘Employee’ and means every person who has
entered the employment of, or works under a service or apprenticeship contract
for an employer. It does not include a person whose employment is purely
casual and is not for the purposes of the occupation or business of the
employer. Any reference to the person dependent on him, as defined in this
Act, if the context so requires, or, if the employee is a minor or
incapacitated, to his guardian or nearest of kin.” (Sec. 39 [b], Act
No. 3428 as amended by Rep. Act No. 772.)

There is no question in our mind that the court a quo gave an
erroneous interpretation to the terms “independent contractor” and “purely
casual” as used in the law on compensation. An independent contractor has been
defined as one who exercises independent employment and contracts to do a piece
of work according to his own methods and without being subject to control of his
employer except as to the result of the work. (Andoyo vs. Manila
Railroad Co., G. R. No. 34722, cited in Francisco, Labor Laws, p. 817.) Some
circumstances taken into account to determine whether a person is an independent
contractor are: whether he has capital or money of his own to pay his laborers;
whether he filed a bond to answer for the fulfillment of his contract with his
employer. In the case at bar, the mere fact that Pablo Manansala had no capital
or money of his own to pay plaintiff, and does not appear to have filed a bond
to answer for his contract with the defendant, does not necessarily prove that
he is not an independent contractor. (Id.) Neither does the fact that
the payment for the work is to be made by piece (work), pakiao, make
Pablo Manansala an independent contractor. This also is not determinative of the
liability or non-liability of the employer for the physical injuries received by
the laborer. (Linaaw and Salome vs. The Mountain Province, G. R. No.
40093, April 24, 1934; Montalban vs. Tan Soon, G. R. No. 4804, July 24,
1942; cited in Francisco, Labor Laws, pp. 818; 820.)

As to the finding of the court that the employment of the plaintiff-appellant
was merely casual, because it was not continuous, we have already had occasion
to decide that it is not the continuity of employment that renders the employer
responsible, but whether the work of the laborer is part of the business or
occupation of the employer. In the case of Calupitan vs. Vda. e Hijos
de Angel Jose (40 Off. Gaz. [11th Sup.], p. 31 cited in appellant’s brief, p.
12), the deceased laborer was hired only for one trip, yet we held that the work
was not purely casual because the trip, was undertaken in two or three times a
year for the accommodation of the defendant’s customers and may be regarded as
part of the employer’s activities.

It will be noted that in order that an employer may not be responsible for an
injury to a laborer it is necessary that the “employment is purely casual
and is not for the purposes of the occupation or business of the employer.”
Casual means occasional, coming without regularity. The work is purely
casual when it is not a part of the business in which the employer is engaged.
The clause “is not for the purposes of the occupation or business of the
employer” complements and explains the term “purely casual”. In a sawmill, for
example, if a power unit running the mill gets out of order and a mechanic is
contracted to fix the engine, the work of the mechanic would be considered as
purely casual, because the reparation of the mill isjiot the actual work or
business of the sawmill but the sawing of lumber. But the piling up of lumber is
work directly connected with the business of a lumber yard. Lumber must be
sorted and piled up in groups according to sizes to facilitate handling and
sale. The piling up of lumber is, therefore, an ordinary part of the Work in a
lumber yard.

The case at bar is similar or parallel to that of stevedores unloading cargo
from a ship. The fact that the stevedores work under the control of a
contractor, who pays them. and that they may seek other work under different
carriers, and their work covers a very short period of time as to each carrier,
does not exempt the carrier who had employed them in the unloading of the cargo
from paying compensation for death or injuries received by them because the
unloading of the cargo is an ordinary part of a carrier’s duty. To this effect
is our decision in the case of Flores vs. Cia. Maritima, 57 Phil. 905,
thus:

“There is not the least shadow of doubt that the deceased was a laborer in
the legal sense. He had been recruited by order of the captain of the ship and
he was engaged in the task of unloading the ship’s cargo at the time of the
accident. There can be no dispute that this kind of work is included in the
business in which the appellee is engaged. That the deceased had been recruited
or engaged by a contractor is of no moment because the latter, for purposes of
the law, was an agent or representative of the ship’s captain who, in turn,
represented the appellee.”

The foregoing considerations clearly demonstrate that the trial court erred
in holding that the plaintiff-appellant’s employment was purely casual and not
for the purposes of the business of the defendant company and the judgment in
relation thereto must be reversed.

Under Section 14 of Act No. 3428, the plaintiff is entitled to receive 60 per
cent of his average weekly wages for the period he was incapacitated for labor,
exclusive of the first seven days. As his average weekly wage is P36.00, he is
entitled to compensation amounting to P321.43. The judgment appealed from is
hereby reversed and the defendant-appellee is hereby ordered to pay
plaintiff-appellant the sum of P321.43, with costs.

Pablo, Acting C. J., Bengzon, Reyes, A., Bautista Angelo,
Concepcion, and Reyes, J. B. L., JJ., concur.

Judgment reversed.