CHRISTIAN THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE FOUNDATION INT’L. INC., ITS MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES AND REV. CHON HYUN KIM, PETITIONERS, VS. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION, EMILIANO…

Christian Theological College Foundation International versus National Labor Relations Commission

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari brought by Christian Theological College Foundation International, a non-stock, non-profit theological school in Porac, Pampanga, together with its Board of Trustees and its Director, Reverend Chon Hyun Kim, against the National Labor Relations Commission and four former teachers, Emiliano David, Edwin Sula, Rolando Manlapaz, and Joselito Milarpis. The teachers had complained of constructive dismissal after they were told to "rest" without pay for the coming school year, and the Labor Arbiter ruled in their favor, awarding backwages, separation pay, and thirteenth month pay. The petitioners ask the Supreme Court to undo the Commission's refusal to entertain their appeal. The case matters because it is a clean lesson on two things every labor practitioner must know cold: the finality of the Labor Arbiter's decision when no appeal is perfected on time, and the rule that the negligence of counsel binds the client.

Procedural History

The four teachers filed a complaint for constructive dismissal and damages before the Labor Arbiter. On the eighth of August 2011, Labor Arbiter Reynaldo Abdon rendered a decision finding the school, its Board of Trustees, and Reverend Kim liable for a total of two million five hundred sixty-five thousand nine hundred thirty-seven pesos and sixty centavos, representing backwages, separation pay, and thirteenth month pay. The petitioners appealed to the National Labor Relations Commission, but the Sixth Division dismissed the appeal for non-perfection, holding that the decision had already become final and executory. The petitioners moved for reconsideration, and the Commission denied the motion in its resolutions of the twenty-ninth of December 2011 and the thirtieth of April 2012. The petitioners then went up to the Supreme Court by petition for certiorari.

Facts

David, Sula, and Manlapaz had taught at the school for six years, while Milarpis had taught for only two. David, Manlapaz, and Milarpis were paid one hundred thirty pesos per hour, and Sula was paid one hundred fifty pesos per hour. In April 2009, after hearing rumors that they had been terminated, the teachers spoke with Reverend Kim, who told them they were not terminated but were merely being allowed to "rest" without pay for the first semester of the coming school year, and that they could return to teach afterward. When asked why they were given no teaching load, he answered that long-term teachers need rest. The teachers later learned that five new teachers had been hired, and that a pastor who had also taught for six years continued to teach and was not asked to rest.

The teachers filed their complaint for constructive dismissal and damages. The school countered that David, Milarpis, and Sula were part-time teachers under fixed one-year contracts, from the sixteenth of May 2008 to the sixteenth of May 2009, which were not renewed because they showed unchristian-like attitudes, and that Manlapaz never manifested his interest to teach in the coming school year.

Labor Arbiter Abdon found the petitioners liable. He held that although the teachers were part-time teachers on fixed one-year contracts, the petitioners failed to refute the claim that the teachers had been working for six years on a full-time basis. Relying on the Brent School doctrine, he ruled that a fixed-term contract is invalid if executed to circumvent the employee's right to security of tenure, and that yearly renewal of contracts confers regular status under Article 280 of the Labor Code. He also found that the Manual of Regulations for Private Schools did not apply because the school was not registered with the Department of Education or the Commission on Higher Education, so the Labor Code governed. The deliberate act of giving no teaching load was tantamount to illegal dismissal. The petitioners' counsel of record received a copy of this decision on the twenty-first of October 2011, but the appeal was mailed only on the eighth of November 2011, eight days after the ten-day period had lapsed.

Issues

• Whether or not the National Labor Relations Commission committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction in dismissing the appeal for non-perfection.
• Whether or not the Labor Arbiter committed serious errors in finding that the private respondents were illegally dismissed and entitled to monetary claims.
• Whether or not the private respondents should be held liable for the expenses incurred by the petitioners, such as attorney's fees and other damages.

Applicable Provisions

Article 223 of the Labor Code, as reflected in the 2011 Rules of Procedure of the National Labor Relations Commission, fixes the period to appeal:

Decisions, resolutions or orders of the Labor Arbiter shall be final and executory unless appealed to the Commission by any or both parties within ten (10) calendar days from receipt thereof.

This is the provision whose ten-day period the petitioners missed, and its lapse is what stripped the Commission of jurisdiction over their appeal.

Section 4 of Rule III of the 2011 Rules of Procedure of the National Labor Relations Commission fixes the reckoning point:

For purposes of appeal, the period shall be counted from receipt of such decisions, resolutions or orders by the counsel or representative of record.

This is the provision that defeats the petitioners' argument that the period should run from the school registrar's receipt on the twenty-sixth of October, because the counsel of record received the decision on the twenty-first.

Article 280 of the Labor Code, which the Labor Arbiter applied in finding the teachers regular, provides:

The provisions of written agreement to the contrary notwithstanding and regardless of the oral agreement of the parties, an employment shall be deemed to be regular where the employee has been engaged to perform activities which are usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer, except where the employment has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking the completion or termination of which has been determined at the time of the engagement of the employee or where the work or service to be performed is seasonal in nature and the employment is for the duration of the season.

This provision supplied the substantive ground for the Labor Arbiter's finding of regular employment and illegal dismissal, which the Supreme Court no longer reached because the decision had become final.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the petition must fail. A petition for certiorari is an extraordinary remedy that lies only to correct errors of jurisdiction or grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction, and it is not, and cannot be, a substitute for a lost appeal. Since the petitioners failed to file their appeal within the ten-day period, the Labor Arbiter's decision lapsed into finality, and when the appeal was filed on the eighth of November 2011, the Commission had already lost jurisdiction to review it. Even assuming the petition were proper, the Court found no grave abuse of discretion, which it defined as a capricious and whimsical exercise of judgment so patent and gross as to amount to an evasion of a positive duty or a virtual refusal to perform a duty enjoined by law.

The Court stressed that the perfection of an appeal within the reglementary period is not only mandatory but jurisdictional, because the right to appeal is not part of due process but a mere statutory privilege to be exercised only in the manner and in accordance with law. It refused to relax the rules in the name of substantial justice, holding that failure to perfect an appeal on time is not a mere technicality but raises a jurisdictional problem. Finally, it found no compelling reason to relax the rule that the negligence of counsel binds the client, since the counsel of record received the decision on the twenty-first of October but failed to inform her clients or to file the appeal on time.

On the second and third issues, the Court did not reach the merits, because the finality of the Labor Arbiter's decision foreclosed any review of his findings of illegal dismissal, monetary awards, or liability for expenses.

Doctrine

First, the perfection of an appeal within the reglementary period is mandatory and jurisdictional; failure to appeal on time renders the decision final and executory and deprives the appellate body of jurisdiction to alter it. Second, under the rules of the Commission, the period to appeal is counted from receipt of the decision by the counsel or representative of record, not by the client. Third, the negligence of counsel binds the client, and absent compelling reason the Court will not relax that rule. Fourth, a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 is not a substitute for a lost appeal, because it lies only where there is no appeal and no plain, speedy, and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law, and it reaches only errors of jurisdiction or grave abuse of discretion.

Disposition

The petition for certiorari was denied for lack of merit, and the resolutions of the National Labor Relations Commission dismissing the appeal for non-perfection were upheld, leaving the Labor Arbiter's award final and executory.

Remember This

Memorize this line: the perfection of an appeal within the reglementary period is not only mandatory but jurisdictional, and the negligence of counsel binds the client. Examiners use this case to test the ten-day appeal period counted from receipt by counsel of record, the finality of the Labor Arbiter's decision, and why certiorari cannot revive a lost appeal.