ROGELIO G. REYES, PETITIONER, VS. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION-THIRD DIVISION, MANILA ELECTRIC COMPANY (MERALCO)/MERALCO INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING SERVICES CORPORATION (MIES…

Reyes versus National Labor Relations Commission

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court filed by Rogelio Reyes against the National Labor Relations Commission, the Manila Electric Company, and the Meralco Industrial Engineering Services Corporation. Reyes asks the Supreme Court to reverse the labor tribunals, which dismissed his complaint for regularization and money claims. He insists that he should be declared a regular employee of Meralco, not merely a project employee of its engineering subsidiary. The case matters because it is a clean illustration of two settled labor principles working together: the legitimate independent contractor who has substantial capital, and the doctrine of stare decisis, which means standing by decided cases and not disturbing what has already been settled. It teaches the Bar candidate how the Court treats a relitigation of a status already pronounced in an earlier, similarly situated case.

Procedural History

Reyes filed a complaint for regularization and money claims before the Labor Arbiter. The Labor Arbiter dismissed the complaint, finding no employer-employee relationship between Reyes and Meralco. Reyes appealed to the National Labor Relations Commission, which affirmed the Labor Arbiter in a decision dated June 25, 2012, dismissing the appeal for lack of merit. The Commission likewise denied his motion for reconsideration in a resolution dated July 25, 2012. Reyes then came to the Supreme Court by petition for certiorari under Rule 65, and the Court dismissed the petition.

Facts

Reyes began working for Meralco in August 1992 as a Junior Branch Field man in its Branch Services Department, doing survey and verification work on Meralco's streetlighting facilities. His temporary employment contracts were renewed yearly from 1992 to 1994. In February 1995 he was again hired by Meralco as a Temporary Branch Field Representative, Collector, and Lineman at its Bacoor Branch Office, and that engagement lasted until September 1999. From October to December 1999 he was hired as a temporary Single Phase Inspector.

On October 2, 2000, Meralco recommended Reyes to its subsidiary, the Meralco Industrial Engineering Services Corporation, known as Miescor, where he worked as Electrical Engineer I, assigned to Meralco's Dasmarinas Contract Administration, performing field inspections, engineering works, and surveys. For more than eighteen years, he says, Meralco never considered him a regular employee but treated him as a mere project employee of Miescor.

On January 18, 2011, Reyes filed a complaint for regularization and money claims against Meralco, Miescor, and two of their officers. Meralco answered that Miescor is a legitimate independent contractor and that Reyes was under Miescor's sole control and supervision, paid by Miescor, and disciplined by Miescor. Miescor answered that Reyes is its project employee and a member in good standing of the Miescor Employees Union, enjoying the benefits of the collective bargaining agreement.

Issues

• Whether or not Reyes is a regular employee of Meralco, entitling him to regularization and his monetary claims against Meralco.
• Whether or not the finding that Miescor is a legitimate labor contractor, already settled in an earlier case involving similarly situated project employees, bars the relitigation of that issue under the doctrine of stare decisis.

Applicable Provisions

The decision quotes the collective bargaining agreement provision identifying the bargaining unit of project-hired employees:

Section 1. The appropriate bargaining unit covered by this agreement shall apply to the project-hired rank and file employees of the COMPANY assigned to projects currently designated as DISTRIBUTION UTILITY SERVICES (DUS) and LINE DESIGN SERVICES (LDS) of MERALCO (or whatever project names these maybe designated later on or in the future) xxx.

This provision bears on the case because Reyes's membership in that union, and his enjoyment of the benefits under that agreement as Miescor's project employee, confirm that his employer is Miescor and not Meralco.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that Reyes is not a regular employee of Meralco. The Court noted that the question of whether Miescor is a legitimate labor contractor had already been decided by the Supreme Court on December 15, 2010, when it upheld the Court of Appeals in the earlier case of Dela Cruz against the National Labor Relations Commission, which involved project employees similarly situated as Reyes. In that case the complainants had likewise alleged labor-only contracting and had claimed that Miescor merely supplied workers to Meralco, and the Court of Appeals declared Miescor a legitimate labor contractor, a ruling the Supreme Court affirmed. The Court quoted the Court of Appeals with approval:

Having established that it has substantial capital, it is no longer necessary for MIESCOR to further adduce evidence to prove that is does not fall within the purview of labor-only contracting. MIESCOR does not even need to refute the petitioners' contention that they are performing services which are directly related to the business of MERALCO.

On the second issue, the Court held that the petition must be dismissed on the ground of stare decisis. It quoted its own settled formulation:

Adherence to the Mecenas case is dictated by this Court's policy of maintaining stability in jurisprudence in accordance with the legal maxim stare decisis et non quieta movere (Follow past precedents and do not disturb what has been settled.) Where, as in this case, the same questions relating to the same event have been put forward by parties similarly situated as in a previous case litigated and decided by a competent court, the rule of stare decisis is a bar to any attempt to relitigate the same issue.

The Court added that stare decisis applies even to parties who are strangers to the original proceeding, and that there was no cogent reason to disturb the findings of the Labor Arbiter and the Commission, which merely adhered to existing jurisprudence. Finally, the Court observed that Reyes did not deny that since October 2, 2000 he had been with Miescor as Electrical Engineer I and had been enjoying the benefits of the collective bargaining agreement as Miescor's project employee. He is therefore not an employee of Meralco but of Miescor, and his claims for regularization and money awards against Meralco must fail.

Doctrine

First, a contractor that has substantial capital is a legitimate independent contractor, and it need not further prove that it does not fall within labor-only contracting, nor refute the claim that its workers perform services directly related to the client's business. Second, under stare decisis, a conclusion reached in one case is applied to those that follow where the facts are substantially the same, even though the parties may be different; the rule bars any attempt to relitigate an issue already settled by a competent court. Third, a worker who is a member of the contractor's union and enjoys the benefits of its collective bargaining agreement as a project employee is an employee of the contractor, not of the client.

Disposition

The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, so Meralco and Miescor prevailed, and Reyes's complaint for regularization and money claims remained dismissed.

Remember This

Memorize the line that a legitimate contractor with substantial capital need not refute that its workers perform services directly related to the client's business, and that stare decisis bars relitigating a status already settled even against different parties. Examiners like to use this case to test labor-only contracting against legitimate job contracting, and to test stare decisis as a ground for dismissing a petition.