LUIS P. DANAO, DOING BUSINESS UNDER THE NAME AND STYLE AS DANASAN MANPOWER AND MANAGEMENT SERVICES, PETITIONER, VS. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION (SIXTH DIVISION) AND MARK…

Danao versus National Labor Relations Commission

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court filed by Luis P. Danao, doing business under the name and style Danasan Manpower and Management Services, against the National Labor Relations Commission and Mark Anthony B. Casem. The petitioner is a licensed recruitment agency that deployed the private respondent as a Restaurant Supervisor to Singapore. The private respondent came home after two months, claiming that his employer changed the nature of his work and withheld his wages, and he filed a complaint for illegal dismissal, unpaid salary, and refund of placement fee. The case matters because it gathers in one decision the rule on abandonment as a ground for dismissal and the rule that abandonment does not by itself sever the employer-employee relationship, which are staple questions in labor law examinations.

Procedural History

The private respondent filed his complaint with the National Labor Relations Commission, and the case was assigned to Labor Arbiter Joel S. Lustria. On February 19, 2014, the Labor Arbiter rendered a decision declaring the private respondent illegally dismissed and ordering the petitioner, jointly and severally, to pay his unrealized earnings for the unexpired portion of his contract, his one month unpaid salary, the reimbursement of his placement fee, and attorney's fees equivalent to ten percent of the total judgment award.

The petitioner appealed to the National Labor Relations Commission, insisting that there was no illegal dismissal because it was the private respondent who pre-terminated his contract by not reporting for work. On July 31, 2014, the Sixth Division of the Commission affirmed the decision of the Labor Arbiter in full. The petitioner moved for reconsideration, and the Commission denied the motion in a resolution dated September 17, 2014.

The petitioner then went up to the Supreme Court by petition for certiorari under Rule 65, assigning the lone error of grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of the Commission in affirming the Labor Arbiter. The Court decided the case through the Third Division, with Justice Dicdican writing for the Court and Justices Ybañez and Paredes concurring.

Facts

In July 2003, the petitioner, acting as agent of its foreign principal Raffles Human Resources PTE Limited, hired the private respondent as a Restaurant Supervisor in Singapore for twelve months at a monthly salary of two thousand Singapore dollars. For his deployment, the private respondent paid a placement fee equivalent to one month's salary, also two thousand Singapore dollars.

On July 16, 2013, the private respondent began working at Shin Minori Japanese Restaurant in Singapore. Two months later, on September 12, 2013, he filed a complaint for illegal dismissal, payment of salary for the unexpired portion of his contract, non-payment of salary for two months, and refund of placement fee. He alleged that his employer changed the nature of his work from Restaurant Supervisor to Restaurant Cook and did not pay his salary according to the contract. When he demanded his wages for the first two months, his employer told him that his salaries had already been paid to the petitioner as his placement fee. Because of his persistent complaints, his employer told him to quit his job, pack up his belongings, and go straight to the airport, as somebody would be monitoring his movement. Fearing for his safety, he bought his plane ticket from his remaining pocket money and flew home.

The petitioner countered that there was no violation of the contract, that the private respondent received his first month's salary, and that starting September 11, 2013 the private respondent stopped reporting for work for unknown reasons, prompting the employer to report the matter to the police and to the agency, only to discover that he had already returned to the Philippines without notice.

Issues

• Whether or not the private respondent abandoned his employment.
• Whether or not the private respondent was illegally dismissed from work by the petitioner.

Applicable Provisions

The Labor Code, as discussed in the decision, requires that dismissal be for any of the just and authorized causes enumerated therein, and the Court states the procedural requirement in these words:

The employer must furnish the worker or employee sought to be dismissed with two (2) written notices, i.e., (a) notice which apprises the employee of the particular acts or omissions for which his dismissal is sought; and, (b) subsequent notice which informs the employee of the employer's decision to dismiss him.

This twin-notice requirement bears on the case because the petitioner never sent the private respondent any written notice of termination, so he was denied the opportunity to defend himself.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the private respondent did not abandon his employment. Abandonment, as a just and valid ground for dismissal, means the deliberate and unjustified refusal of an employee to resume his employment. The burden of proof is on the employer to show an unequivocal intent on the part of the employee to discontinue employment, and this intent cannot be lightly inferred or legally presumed from ambivalent acts. Mere absence from work is not sufficient; there must be evidence not only of the failure to report for work without valid or justifiable reason, but also of the employee's intention to sever the employer-employee relationship, accompanied by manifest acts unerringly pointing to the fact that the employee simply does not want to work anymore. The petitioner failed to adduce evidence of any overt act showing such intent. The private respondent had continued to work without receiving his salary, and what prompted him to go home was his employer's order to quit, pack up, and go straight to the airport. More importantly, he filed his complaint for illegal dismissal on September 12, 2013, just two days after his arrival from Singapore, and the Court held that the filing of a complaint for illegal dismissal is inconsistent with the charge of abandonment, for an employee who takes steps to protest his dismissal could not, by logic, be said to have abandoned his work.

On the second issue, the Court held that the private respondent was illegally dismissed. The dismissal of an employee should be for any of the just and authorized causes enumerated in the Labor Code, and since the petitioner utterly failed to justify the discharge on the ground of abandonment, the finding of illegal dismissal stood. The Court stressed that abandonment of work does not, per se, sever the employer-employee relationship; it is merely a form of neglect of duty, which is in turn a just cause for termination, and the operative act that puts an end to the relationship is the dismissal of the employee after complying with the procedure prescribed by law. No written notice was ever sent to the private respondent informing him that he had been terminated for abandonment, so he was denied the opportunity to defend himself, and this failure to comply with the twin-notice requirement further underscored the irregularity surrounding his dismissal.

Doctrine

Abandonment, as a just and valid ground for dismissal, means the deliberate and unjustified refusal of an employee to resume his employment. The employer bears the burden of proving an unequivocal intent to discontinue employment, and that intent cannot be lightly inferred or legally presumed from ambivalent acts; mere absence from work is not sufficient. There must be evidence of the failure to report for work without valid or justifiable reason and of the intention to sever the employer-employee relationship, shown by manifest acts unerringly pointing to the fact that the employee does not want to work anymore.

The filing of a complaint for illegal dismissal is inconsistent with the charge of abandonment, for an employee who takes steps to protest his dismissal could not, by logic, be said to have abandoned his work.

Abandonment does not, per se, sever the employer-employee relationship; it is merely a form of neglect of duty, which is a just cause for termination, and the operative act that ends the relationship is the dismissal of the employee after compliance with the procedure prescribed by law. That procedure requires the twin written notices quoted above: the first apprising the employee of the particular acts or omissions for which dismissal is sought, and the second informing him of the employer's decision to dismiss him.

Disposition

The Supreme Court denied the petition and affirmed the decision and resolution of the National Labor Relations Commission, so the private respondent won and the award of his unrealized earnings, unpaid salary, placement fee reimbursement, and attorney's fees stands.

Remember This

Memorize this line: abandonment requires a deliberate and unjustified refusal to resume work, proven by the employer through unequivocal intent, and mere absence is never enough. Examiners like to use this case to test the burden of proof in abandonment and the rule that abandonment does not by itself sever the employment relationship without the twin notices.