PACIENCIA VDA. DE PONGAN, PETITIONER, VS. WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION COMMISSION AND LUZON STEVEDORING CORPORATION, RESPONDENTS.

Paciencia Vda. de Pongan versus Workmen's Compensation Commission and Luzon Stevedoring

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari filed by Paciencia Vda. de Pongan against the Workmen's Compensation Commission and Luzon Stevedoring Corporation. The petitioner seeks to reverse the decision of the Commission, sitting en banc, which had set aside the award of death compensation and burial expenses granted to her by the Acting Referee. The case matters because it is a compact illustration of the social-justice orientation of the Workmen's Compensation Act: the presumption of compensability, the sufficiency of a work connection rather than a medical certainty, and the principle that even a non-occupational illness such as a cerebro vascular accident may be compensable when the nature of the employment brought it about.

Procedural History

The petitioner, through her son Antonio Pongan, filed a notice and claim for compensation in death cases against Luzon Stevedoring Corporation before the Acting Referee, Benjamin Almonte. After trial on the merits, the Acting Referee issued a decision granting death compensation benefits in the amount of four thousand six hundred eighty pesos, plus reimbursement of burial expenses in the amount of two hundred pesos. The respondent corporation filed a petition for review and motion for reconsideration, contending that the pulmonary tuberculosis of the deceased was not caused or aggravated by his employment. Acting on that petition, the Workmen's Compensation Commission, en banc, reversed the Acting Referee and dismissed the claim for lack of merit. The petitioner then elevated the matter to the Supreme Court by petition for certiorari.

Facts

Dominador Pongan had been employed by Luzon Stevedoring Corporation even before the last world war. He worked as a stevedore at Pier 9 and Pier 13 of the South Harbor in Manila, and he was mostly assigned to night shifts. In 1967 he contracted pulmonary tuberculosis and was treated by Doctor Nicolas Buñag, the company physician and medical director. Because of necessity he continued working, still mostly on night shifts, which further weakened him through lack of sleep and improper rest and aggravated his tuberculosis.

On January 18, 1973, he was admitted to the Martinez Memorial Hospital in Caloocan City, where the medical reports of Doctor Buñag showed that he was suffering from a cerebro vascular accident. A chest x-ray report by Doctor A. L. Gregorio noted a homogenous density at the right upper lung with tracheal retraction to the right, with an impression of atelectatic right upper lung and a possibility of Pancoast tumor that had to be eliminated. He died on February 12, 1973, a month later, while still under the treatment of Doctor Buñag.

The dispute centered on the actual cause of death. The death certificate stated pulmonary tuberculosis as the cause. The respondent corporation argued that the deceased died of a cerebro vascular accident, which the medical certificate and x-ray report did not link to his employment, and that tuberculosis could not have progressed so fast as to kill him within one month. The petitioner maintained that the deceased had contracted tuberculosis as early as 1967 and had been under treatment for it, while also suffering from a cerebro vascular accident.

Issues

• Whether or not the Workmen's Compensation Commission erred in holding that the deceased had not undergone any x-ray examination supporting the finding that pulmonary tuberculosis was the cause of his death.
• Whether or not the Commission erred in holding that the petitioner failed to establish a causal link between the pulmonary tuberculosis of the deceased and his employment.
• Whether or not the Commission erred in dismissing the claim despite the petitioner having proven her case and the respondent having submitted no evidence.
• Whether or not death from a cerebro vascular accident is compensable under the Workmen's Compensation Act.

Applicable Provisions

Section 2 of the Workmen's Compensation Act provides:

SEC. 2. Grounds for compensation. — When an employee suffers personal injury from any accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, or contracts tuberculosis or other illness directly caused by such employment, or either aggravated by or the result of the nature of such employment, his employer shall pay compensation in the sums and to the persons hereinafter specified. x x x.

This is the operative provision: it makes compensable not only tuberculosis and occupational illness, but any illness directly caused by the employment or aggravated by or the result of the nature of that employment.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the absence of an x-ray examination expressly naming tuberculosis did not defeat the claim. The Court recalled its ruling in Vda. de Galang versus Workmen's Compensation Commission, that even where the actual cause of death was cancer of the lung and not tuberculosis, compensation still lies, because the law presumes, in the absence of substantial evidence to the contrary, that a claim is compensable, and even where the cause of death is unknown the right to compensation subsists, the Workmen's Compensation Act being a social legislation designed to give relief to the working man.

On the second issue, the Court acknowledged the Commission's observation that tuberculosis does not progress so fast as to cause death within one month from the x-ray examination, and that the report of the attending physician mentioned nothing about tuberculosis. But the Court held that this did not end the matter, because the question of causality is governed by the same rules whether the injury is an accident or a disease, death being included within the meaning of personal injury or sickness.

On the third issue, the Court held that once the illness supervened at the time of the employment, there is a rebuttable presumption that the illness arose out of the employment or was at least aggravated by it. Not having been successfully controverted by substantial evidence to the contrary, the petitioner enjoys the presumption of compensability.

On the fourth issue, the Court held that death from a cerebro vascular accident is compensable. Although a cerebro vascular accident may not be an occupational disease of stevedores, it falls within the ambit of the law as directly caused or aggravated by the employment. Illness directly caused by the employment, as distinguished from occupational diseases, need not result from the nature of the employment; it is enough that some feature of the employment, accidental or occasional, brought it about. An injury arises out of the employment when there is apparent to the rational mind, upon consideration of all the circumstances, a causal connection between the conditions under which the work is required to be performed and the resulting injury. The Court found that the deceased, constantly exposed to the elements and bearing great physical strain, could fairly be expected to suffer a stroke, since the physical effort and periodic urgency of a stevedore's duties may cause a great increase in blood pressure, straining the vascular system, and occurring repeatedly over a long period of time, a stroke is validly foreseeable.

Doctrine

First, the Workmen's Compensation Act is social legislation, and the law presumes that a claim is compensable in the absence of substantial evidence to the contrary; even where the cause of death is unknown, the right to compensation subsists.

Second, once the illness supervened at the time of the employment, there is a rebuttable presumption that the illness arose out of the employment or was at least aggravated by it, and the employer must overcome that presumption with substantial evidence.

Third, under Section 2 of the Act, an illness directly caused by the employment, as distinguished from an occupational disease, need not result from the nature of the employment; it is enough that some feature of the employment, accidental or occasional, brought it about. This is the rule that made a cerebro vascular accident compensable for a stevedore.

Disposition

The petition was granted, the decision of the Workmen's Compensation Commission was reversed, and Luzon Stevedoring Corporation was ordered to pay the petitioner six thousand pesos as death benefits, two hundred pesos as reimbursement of burial expenses, six hundred pesos as attorney's fees, and sixty-one pesos as administrative fee to the Ministry of Labor and Employment.

Remember This

The single line worth memorizing is that the Workmen's Compensation Act is social legislation, so the law presumes compensability once the illness supervened during the employment, and even a non-occupational illness like a cerebro vascular accident is compensable if some feature of the employment brought it about. Examiners like to use this case to test the presumption of compensability and the distinction between occupational diseases and illnesses directly caused or aggravated by the employment.