MARY JOY LOPEZ VICTORIANO, PETITIONER, VS. THE HON. COMMISSIONERS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION, SEVENTH DIVISION, CEBU CITY AND ATLAS DIVE RESORT, ANDY POPE, GEORG…

Victoriano versus National Labor Relations Commission

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure, filed by Mary Joy Lopez Victoriano against the Commissioners of the National Labor Relations Commission, Seventh Division, Cebu City, and against Atlas Dive Resort, Andy Pope, George Bender, and other private respondents. Victoriano, a massage therapist who had worked at the resort, filed a complaint for illegal dismissal and money claims after her employment ended. The Labor Arbiter ruled in her favor, but the National Labor Relations Commission later set that ruling aside on a motion for reconsideration. The case matters because it tests two things every labor practitioner must know: first, whether an appeal filed through a private courier is deemed filed on time, and second, whether good faith can excuse a late appeal. The Court answers both questions firmly, and in doing so restores the Labor Arbiter's award of damages to the dismissed employee.

Procedural History

Victoriano filed her complaint for illegal dismissal, illegal suspension, illegal deduction, non-payment of overtime pay, premium pay for rest day and night shift pay, and separation pay before the National Labor Relations Commission, Sub-Regional Arbitration Branch Number Seven, in Dumaguete City. On December 20, 2010, Labor Arbiter Leo Montenegro rendered a decision declaring that Victoriano was illegally dismissed and ordering the private respondents to pay her five hundred thirty-one thousand three hundred eighty-three pesos.

The private respondents received a copy of that decision on January 18, 2011 through their previous counsel. They filed their appeal through LBC, a private courier, and the appeal was received by the Sub-Regional Arbitration Branch only on January 31, 2011. The National Labor Relations Commission issued a Resolution dated May 31, 2011 dismissing the appeal as filed out of time. On a motion for reconsideration filed by the private respondents, however, the Commission reversed itself. In its Decision dated August 26, 2011, it partially granted the appeal, declared that Victoriano was not illegally dismissed, and modified the Labor Arbiter's decision, leaving only an award of thirteenth month pay of twenty thousand pesos. Victoriano's motion for reconsideration was denied in a Resolution dated November 29, 2011. She then brought the matter to the Supreme Court by petition for certiorari under Rule 65, which is the proper remedy because decisions of the National Labor Relations Commission are final and executory and not subject to ordinary appeal.

Facts

Victoriano was hired by Atlas Dive Resort on June 3, 2005 as a massage therapist. Her starting monthly salary was seven thousand pesos, later increased to ten thousand pesos, and she worked from two o'clock in the afternoon until eleven o'clock in the evening every day. Over the years she was penalized several times: a one thousand peso charge in November 2005 for using the resort's telephone, a seven-day suspension without pay in October 2006 for allegedly selling properties to a resort guest, a fourteen-day suspension in December 2006 for allegedly violating the resort's mission and vision statement, and a one thousand peso fine in February 2007 for assisting a guest in going to the grocery. She claims she was never given due process in any of these instances.

According to Victoriano, sometime in July 2007 management decided to change her employment status from regular employee to commission-based employee. She was told to go home and that she would be called back if her services were needed. After November 4, 2007, no such call ever came. She was asked to sign a pre-formatted resignation letter, which she refused to submit.

The private respondents tell a different story. They claim she resigned in August 2007 and submitted a resignation letter, which they say can no longer be produced because the former Human Resource Manager failed to turn over all documents when she herself resigned in March 2009. They point to her outstanding loan balance of sixteen thousand two hundred fifty pesos from a foundation created by the resort for its qualified employees, arguing that this runs counter to her claim of dismissal. In the alternative, they argue that if she was dismissed, there were just causes, and that they would be liable only for nominal damages.

Issues

• Whether or not the National Labor Relations Commission gravely abused its discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction when it granted the private respondents' motion for reconsideration and considered their appeal as having been perfected, despite its having been filed out of time.
• Whether or not the National Labor Relations Commission gravely abused its discretion when it conducted a trial de novo on appeal and shifted to the petitioner the burden of proving illegal dismissal.

Applicable Provisions

The decision rests on the rule governing the timeliness of appeals, as stated in the case of Benguet Electric Cooperative versus the National Labor Relations Commission, which the Court quotes:

The established rule is that the date of delivery of pleadings to a private letter-forwarding agency is not to be considered as the date of filing thereof in court, and that in such cases, the date of actual receipt by the court, and not the date of delivery to the private carrier, is deemed the date of filing of that pleading.

This rule is decisive because the private respondents delivered their appeal to a private courier, and the appeal reached the Commission only after the ten-day reglementary period had lapsed.

The Court also invokes the doctrine on the perfection of appeals, which it states as follows:

It is a long-settled doctrine that the perfection of an appeal in the manner and within the period permitted by law is not only mandatory but also jurisdictional.

This principle means that the Commission had no authority to entertain an appeal that was not perfected on time, and its doing so was an act without jurisdiction.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court ruled in favor of Victoriano. It held that the Commission gravely abused its discretion when it granted the motion for reconsideration and treated the appeal as perfected. The private respondents received the Labor Arbiter's decision on January 18, 2011, so they had until January 28, 2011, the tenth day, to appeal. That day fell on a Friday. Instead of filing on that day, they consigned their notice of appeal to LBC, a private courier, and the Commission received it only on January 31, 2011, the following Monday. Under the Benguet Electric rule, the date of actual receipt by the court, not the date of delivery to the private carrier, is the date of filing. The appeal was therefore late.

The Court stressed that the Commission itself acknowledged in its assailed decision that nothing in the record showed the appeal was filed on time, yet it excused the delay on the ground of good faith. The Court rejected this, holding that good faith is not a suitable ground to excuse an appeal filed out of time, and that it was capricious for the Commission to conclude that the appeal had been perfected when the record disclosed no timely appeal. The Court reiterated that the rules on appeal must be strictly complied with, lest there be no end to litigation, and that the perfection of an appeal in the manner and within the period fixed by law is mandatory and jurisdictional. Because the appeal was never validly perfected, the Commission had no authority to touch the Labor Arbiter's decision, and the second issue concerning the alleged trial de novo and the shifting of the burden of proof became unnecessary to resolve.

Doctrine

Three rules must be retained. First, the date of delivery of a pleading to a private letter-forwarding agency is not the date of filing; the date of actual receipt by the court or tribunal is the date of filing. Second, the perfection of an appeal in the manner and within the period permitted by law is not only mandatory but jurisdictional, so a late appeal confers no jurisdiction on the appellate tribunal. Third, good faith is not a valid ground to excuse an appeal filed out of time. These rules are tied to the quoted Benguet Electric doctrine and the settled principle on perfection of appeals, and they apply with full force to labor cases, where the ten-day reglementary period for appeal is strictly counted from receipt of the Labor Arbiter's decision.

Disposition

The petition was granted; the Decision dated August 26, 2011 and the Resolution dated November 29, 2011 of the National Labor Relations Commission were reversed and set aside, and the Decision of the Labor Arbiter dated December 20, 2010 was reinstated, restoring Victoriano's award for illegal dismissal.

Remember This

The one line to memorize: filing with a private courier is not filing with the court, and a late appeal is a jurisdictional defect that good faith cannot cure. Examiners like to use this case to test the reckoning of the ten-day appeal period in labor cases and the strict, non-excusable nature of the perfection of appeals.