INDUSTRIAL TEXTILE MANUFACTURING COMPANY OF THE PHILIPPINES, PETITIONER, VS. SOFIA REYES FLORZO AND THE WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION COMMISSION, RESPONDENTS.

Industrial Textile Manufacturing Company of the Philippines versus Florzo

The Case

This is a claim for death benefits under the Workmen's Compensation Act. Sofia Reyes Florzo, the mother of a deceased factory worker named Ricardo Florzo, sought compensation from his former employer, the Industrial Textile Manufacturing Company of the Philippines, which the parties call Itemcop. The Workmen's Compensation Commission granted the claim, and the employer brought the matter to the Supreme Court. The case matters for three reasons a reviewee should hold onto: it settles who may validly decide appealed compensation cases under the reorganized Commission, it applies the rule that an employer's own delay defeats its defense of the claimant's delay, and it restates the liberal, social-legislation reading of the Workmen's Compensation Act, including the presumption of compensability.

Procedural History

Sofia Reyes Florzo filed her notice of injury and claim for compensation with Regional Office Number 4 of the Department of Labor. The Workmen's Compensation Commission then ordered Itemcop to pay her death benefits, medical and burial expenses, and attorneys' fees, and to pay amounts into the Workmen's Compensation Fund and for the review fee. Itemcop appealed. The appeal reached the Supreme Court, which reviewed the judgment of the Commission and affirmed it.

Facts

Ricardo Florzo worked for Itemcop for a little less than four years, until his death on March 20, 1960, at the age of twenty-five. He was a beam carrier. His primary job was to replace empty loom beams attached to weaving machines with fully loaded ones. An empty beam weighs from fifteen to thirty kilos, and during an eight-hour period about twenty to thirty beams are substituted on a total of four hundred six machines. He worked eight hours a day, six days a week.

Florzo fell ill on March 5, 1960, and did not report for work. The company physician diagnosed his ailment as thrombocytopenic purpura, idiopathic, meaning a diminution of blood cells whose cause is unknown. Later he was found to be suffering from cerebral hemorrhage secondary to blood dyscracia, and anemia secondary to hemorrhage. On March 14, 1960, half of his body became paralyzed, and he was taken to the Lourdes Hospital. He died there six days later, on March 20, 1960. The autopsy conducted by the medico-legal office of the National Bureau of Investigation reported the cause of death as severe anemia secondary to hemorrhagic gastric ulcer.

On May 3, 1961, the mother lodged her notice of injury and claim for compensation. Itemcop thereafter filed its employer's report of accident or sickness and the physician's report, both dated May 23, 1961. In that employer's report, Itemcop itself placed the date of sickness as March 4, 1960, the date of disability as March 5, 1960, the date of its actual knowledge of the sickness as March 5, 1960, and the date of death as March 20, 1960.

Issues

• Whether or not the Director of Workmen's Compensation, as ex-officio chairman of the Workmen's Compensation Commission, may validly decide compensation cases appealed from the regional offices.
• Whether or not the claim is barred because the notice of sickness and the claim for compensation were filed beyond the periods fixed by the Workmen's Compensation Act.
• Whether or not the death of the employee is compensable.

Applicable Provisions

Section 46 of the Workmen's Compensation Act, on jurisdiction, provides:

SEC. 46. Jurisdiction. - The Workmen's Compensation Commissioner shall have exclusive jurisdiction to hear and decide claims for compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act, subject to appeal to the Supreme Court, in the same manner and in the same period as provided by law and by rules of court for appeal from the court of Industrial Relations to the Supreme Court.

Itemcop invoked this provision to argue that the Director could not review and decide compensation cases on appeal from the regional offices, a position the Court rejected in light of the reorganization plan.

Section 27 of the Workmen's Compensation Act, on notice, provides:

Failure to give, or delay in giving notice shall not be a bar to the proceeding if it is shown that the employer, his agent or representative had knowledge of the accident.

This defeats the objection that the notice was late, because Itemcop admittedly knew of the sickness and death from the start.

Section 45 of the Workmen's Compensation Act, on controversion, provides in its second paragraph that an employer's failure to controvert the right to compensation constitutes a renunciation of his right to challenge the claim. This is the provision that barred Itemcop from raising any defense it had not timely controverted.

Section 44, paragraph 1, of the Workmen's Compensation Act establishes the presumption of compensability, which the Court applied in the absence of substantial evidence to the contrary from the employer.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the authority of the Director of Workmen's Compensation, as ex-officio chairman of the Commission, to decide appealed cases from the regional offices is valid and binding. Congress validly granted the Government Survey and Reorganization Commission the power to abolish, create, and transfer functions and positions. Under the plan, three commissioners were created in place of one, but their powers are the same as those of the commissioner under Section 46. There was merely a reallocation of powers already possessed, and no assumption of powers not previously vested.

On the second issue, the Court held that the claim was not barred. Itemcop had actual knowledge of the sickness and death, as admitted in its own employer's report. The Court quoted the statute:

Failure to give, or delay in giving notice shall not be a bar to the proceeding if it is shown that the employer, his agent or representative had knowledge of the accident.

Itemcop itself failed to file its employer's report as soon as possible, and failed to controvert the right to compensation within the periods fixed by Section 45. Its failure to controvert, without cause, amounts by the terms of the statute to a renunciation of its right to challenge the claim. Guilty itself of laches, and to a greater degree, it cannot set up the laches of the other party as a defense.

On the third issue, the Court held the death compensable. The physician explained that frequent stress from lifting heavy objects might produce a stress ulcer, and that continuous work on a person with a stomach ulcer aggravates the condition and may produce hemorrhage. The Commission reasoned that the continuous exertion of carrying heavy beams gradually resulted in the illness, the paralysis, and ultimately the death. At any rate, the law presumes, absent substantial evidence to the contrary, that the claim is compensable, and the burden to disconnect the sickness from employment by substantial evidence lies at the employer's door. Itemcop failed to discharge that burden. Even where the cause of death is unknown, the right to compensation subsists. The Workmen's Compensation Act is social legislation, designed to give relief to the workman, and must be liberally construed to effectuate its purpose.

Doctrine

First, the authority of the Director of Workmen's Compensation, as ex-officio chairman of the Commission, to decide appealed compensation cases is valid; the reorganization merely reallocated powers already possessed and assumed no new ones.

Second, an employer who had actual knowledge of the employee's sickness or accident cannot defeat the claim by objecting that notice was late, for Section 27 makes knowledge equivalent to notice.

Third, an employer who fails to controvert the right to compensation within the statutory period renounces its right to challenge the claim, and cannot invoke the claimant's laches when it is itself guilty of a greater delay.

Fourth, the Workmen's Compensation Act is social legislation to be liberally construed; compensability is presumed, and the employer bears the burden of disconnecting the injury or sickness from the employment by substantial evidence. Even an unknown cause of death does not defeat the right to compensation.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Workmen's Compensation Commission, with costs against Itemcop, the employer.

Remember This

The one line to memorize: the employer who does not controvert renounces its right to challenge the claim, and the law presumes the claim compensable because the Workmen's Compensation Act is social legislation to be liberally construed. Examiners use this case for the presumption of compensability and the burden of proof on the employer, and for the rule that an employer's own laches bars it from pleading the claimant's delay.