JAIME LIMATOC, PETITIONER, VS. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION AND SPIRAL CORE PACKAGING INDUSTRIES, INC. REPRESENTED BY ITS MANAGER MARIO ANG, RESPONDENTS.

Limatoc versus National Labor Relations Commission and Spiral Core Packaging Industries

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari filed by Jaime Limatoc against the National Labor Relations Commission and Spiral Core Packaging Industries, Incorporated, represented by its manager Mario Ang. Limatoc, a delivery truck driver, was dismissed by his employer for serious misconduct after a workplace altercation in which he was armed with a knife. He asks the Supreme Court to annul the Commission's resolutions reversing the Labor Arbiter's finding of illegal dismissal and to reinstate that favorable ruling. The case matters for two reasons: it is a working illustration of how the sixty-day period for a petition for certiorari is counted, and it shows that even a sympathetic dismissal story will not move the Court when the extraordinary remedy is filed out of time.

Procedural History

Limatoc filed a complaint for illegal dismissal against Spiral Core before the Labor Arbiter. On 27 August 2001, the Labor Arbiter rendered a decision in his favor, holding the dismissal illegal. Spiral Core appealed, and the National Labor Relations Commission reversed and set aside the Labor Arbiter's decision, upholding the dismissal as valid and justified. Limatoc moved for reconsideration, which the Commission denied. He then came to the Supreme Court by petition for certiorari under Rule 65, seeking to annul the Commission's resolutions and to reinstate the Labor Arbiter's decision.

Facts

Jaime Limatoc had been a delivery truck driver of Spiral Core Packaging Industries since 8 April 1987. On the morning of 13 April 1996, while all concerned were performing their duties within the company premises, an altercation broke out between Limatoc and another delivery truck driver, Basilio Naive, together with Naive's two helpers. Limatoc was armed with a knife, Naive with a wrench, and the helpers with steel pipes. Management intervened in time and separated them. According to Naive and one helper, the trouble began when they asked Limatoc to move his truck, which was parked in front of theirs, and Limatoc rudely replied that they should wait unless they wanted to taste his steel. A verbal tussle followed, and after Naive's group had boarded their truck to leave, Limatoc confronted them again, punched Naive on the shoulder, and pulled out a fan knife. Limatoc's version is that he was the one threatened, and that he took his knife from under the driver's seat only because he was scared.

The day after the incident, Limatoc, Naive, and the two helpers were suspended, and Limatoc and Naive were told that readmission would depend on the company investigation and on the barangay. On 16 April 1996, Naive as complainant and Limatoc as respondent signed a settlement agreement in which Limatoc promised that the incident would not happen again and that they would close the matter so that their work would be orderly, and Naive accepted the promise.

The following day, 17 April 1996, Limatoc reported for work but was not allowed in and was told he was already dismissed. On 22 April 1996, Spiral Core sent him a memorandum informing him that his employment was being terminated for serious misconduct, and a letter of the same date asking him to vacate the housing unit the company had provided. Limatoc then filed his complaint for illegal dismissal.

Issues

• Whether or not the National Labor Relations Commission acted with grave abuse of discretion in holding that Limatoc's dismissal was valid, contrary to the findings of the Labor Arbiter.
• Whether or not the Commission acted with grave abuse of discretion in holding that the dismissal was justified, contrary to the findings of the Labor Arbiter.
• Whether or not the private respondent's submissions in its comment to the petition are tenable.
• Whether or not the petition was filed within the period fixed by the Rules.

Applicable Provisions

Section 4 of Rule 65 of the Rules of Court provides:

Section 4. When and Where petition filed. The petition shall be filed not later than sixty (60) days from notice of the judgment, order or resolution. In case a motion for reconsideration or new trial is timely filed, whether such motion is required or not, the sixty (60) day period shall be counted from notice of the denial of said motion.

This is the provision on which the entire case turns, because the Court dismissed the petition for failing to comply with its fixed period.

Ruling

The Court resolved the case on the procedural question of timeliness and dismissed the petition, so it never reached the merits of the dismissal. Spiral Core contended that the petition was filed out of time, and the Court treated this as a serious contention it could not overlook. Limatoc claimed that he received the Commission's resolution denying his motion for reconsideration only on 19 January 2004, but the certified copies of the registry return receipts showed that his counsel before the Commission received the denial as early as 16 February 2003, and the original records elevated to the Court confirmed this. His own copy, sent to his given address, was returned because the addressee was unknown.

The Court held that notice to counsel of record is notice to the party. The resolution received by Limatoc's counsel was therefore considered received by Limatoc on 16 February 2003. The sixty-day period began to run the following day, and Limatoc had until 17 March 2003 to file his petition. He did not. On his plea for a liberal interpretation, the Court answered that utter disregard of the period explicitly set by the Rules cannot be permitted, and that the policy of liberal construction will never justify nor rationalize the nonobservance of the period. The Court stressed that the observance of the period for filing a petition for certiorari is inflexible, and that unlike the Supreme Court, which alone can suspend the applicability of its rules of procedure, the Court cannot overlook or set aside that period, no matter how meritorious the petition. The rationale is to avoid unreasonable delay that would violate the constitutional right of the parties to a speedy disposition of their case.

Doctrine

A petition for certiorari under Rule 65 must be filed not later than sixty days from notice of the judgment, order, or resolution, and where a motion for reconsideration is timely filed, the period is counted from notice of the denial of that motion. The period is mandatory and inflexible; liberal construction will not excuse its nonobservance, however meritorious the petition may be. Notice to counsel of record is notice to the party, so the date counsel receives the denial, not the date the client claims to have received it, starts the count. The Court that receives the petition cannot suspend the Rules; only the Supreme Court may do so.

Disposition

The petition was dismissed for having been filed out of time, and the Commission's resolutions upholding Limatoc's dismissal stand.

Remember This

Memorize the line that the sixty-day period for certiorari is inflexible and that notice to counsel is notice to the party. Examiners use this case in remedial law and labor law to test whether you count the period from the denial of the motion for reconsideration received by counsel, and whether you know that a meritorious case cannot save an untimely petition.