G.R. No. L-29348. November 29, 1971
GENERAL TEXTILES, INC., PETITIONER, VS. TEOFILO TAAY, RESPONDENT.
TEEHANKEE, J.:
Appeal by certiorari from a decision of the Workmen’s ComÂpensation
Commission en banc.
In the decision dated February
14, 1968 of then acting commisÂsion chairman Cesareo
Perez, the award dated November 9,
1967 issued by the workmen’s compensation section chief of the
commission’s Pasay
City subregional
office for respondent claimant Taay’s total temporary
disability due to moderately advanced
pulmonary tuberculosis (incurred after eight years employment as operator with
petitioner) was affirmed with modification.
Petitioner was thereby ordered:
“1. To pay the claimant in lump sum through this
Commission the amount of ONE THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED THIRTY and 35/100 PESOS
(P1,330.35) as compensation; and commencing February 15, 1968, to pay the
claimant a weekly compensation of P27.15 until his illness is declared by competent authority to have been cured or
arrested, but not to exceed the amount of P6,000.00 in the aggregate;
“2. To pay the claimant the sum of ONE HUNDRED
FOURTEEN and 65/100 PESOS (P114.65) as reimburseÂment of medical expenses, and
to provide him with such services, appliances, and supplies as the nature of
his disÂability and the process of his recovery may require, and that which
would promote his early restoration to the maximum level of his physical
capacity; and
“3. To pay the Workmen’s Compensation Fund the sum
of NINETEEN PESOS (P14.00 as decision fee and P5.00 as cost of this review)
pursuant to Sec. 55 of the Act, as amended.”
Petitioner’s motion for reconsideration was denied “for lack
of merit” by the commission en banc in its resolution of July 18, 1968.
Petitioner’s appeal was given due course per the Court’s resoluÂtion
of August 27, 1968 on petitioner’s seemingly plausible submittal that its
substantial rights had been violated in that the commission allegedly arbiÂtrarily
held its statement of controversion to be a pro
forma statement of controversion that was
fatally deficient in form and substance, notwithstandÂing that its failure to
state its reasons for controversion was due to the
lack of a corresponding question thereon in WC Form No. 3, supplied by the comÂmission
itself, and that it had therefore been denied its right to due process.
The appeal was submitted for decision without respondent having
filed a brief.
The commission records, however, fully support and justify in law
the decision appealed from.
The case background is thus briefly recounted in the
decision: “(I)t appears that the
award in question was issued based upon the records and without a hearing on
the merits for failure of the respondent to controÂvert the right to
compensation of the claimant in accordance with law. In now seeking to set aside the award and to
have the case heard on the merits, the respondent in effect contends that it
had timely exercised its right of controversion and
therefore, it is entitled to a hearing where it could preÂsent ‘a valid and
good defense showing its non-liability to the claim…’ In essence, it is the
position of the respondent that it first acquired knowÂledge of the claimant’s
illness when it received on September
11, 1967 the claim for compensation which was served upon it by the
Pasay City Sub-Regional Office. In this connection it presented evidence
showing that on September 19, 1967,
or within ten days from receipt of the claim, it filed its corresponding
employer’s reports containing its controversion with
Regional Office No. 4 Manila. On this
score, we are willing to grant, in the liberal interpretation of the Rules of
the Workmen’s Compensation Commission to promote the ends of justice, that
there was substantial compliance in so far as the act of the physical filing of
the reports is concerned, considering that by law, Pasay
City Sub-Regional Office 4 still stands as an integral part of Regional Office
No. 4, Manila.”
1. The commission, after an
examination of the photostat copies of the reports,
the originals of which were filed with its Manila regional office, expressly
sustained the award having been made without need of hearing on the merits due
to petitioner’s failure to controvert respondent’s right to compensation in
accordance with law, more specifically in the following particulars:
“1. The respondent failed to comply with the form
and substance required for the notice of controversion
by failing to state ‘in clear terms the grounds or reasons for controverting the employee’s rights to compensation (Sec.
2, Rule 8, Rules of the Commission); for in Item 7 of the Employer’s Report
(WCC Form No. 3), the respondent was content to answer a simple ‘Yes’ to the
question, ‘State whether you will controvert the claim for compensation in this
case’; and
“2. The respondent failed to comply with the subÂstantial
requirements in the accomplishment
of the emÂployer’s report required under Sec. 37 of the Act for purÂposes of
administration and under Rule 7 of the Rules of the Commission for the purpose
of serving as an answer.”
2. Petitioner’s main
contention that “the commission cannot prescribe a form to serve as notice
of controversion and then discard it as insufficient,
in form and substance, when answered as instructed, especially when the
form prescribed was prepared, printed, utilized, supplied, furnished and
provided by it”[1]
is not borne out by the records.
Thus, the commission noted “from the Employer’s Report (WCC
Form No. 3) submitted by the respondent, that aside from the personal
employment data of the claimant, the former avoided the submission of
relevant information regarding the circumstances surrounding the illness of the
claimant, such as its nature and cause, date and probable length of disability
(Items 18 to 33) by the simple expedient of answering the quesÂtions for each
item with the phrase ‘Not applicable’.
Under Sec. 37 of the Act, it is the duty of the employer, under pain of
penal sanction, to give such information which it is presumed conclusively by
law to be in possesÂsion of or to have access to.”[2]
3. Reproduced hereinbelow in part are the evasive answers given by
petitioner to the numerous questions expressly asked in the commission’s
printed notice of controversion in accordance with
the commission’s rules requiring the employer to state its reasons for controversion:
“TIME AND PLACE
18. Place where accident occurred or sickness conÂtracted
Do not know
19. Date of injury or sickness Do not know ,19 at A. M. / P. M.
20. Was injured paid in full for this day? Not applicable
21. Date of disability began Do not know ,19 at A. M. / P. M.
22. When did you or your foreman first know of
injury or sickness? Not applicable
23. Name of foreman Not applicable
“x x x
“NATURE OF INJURY
31. Nature and location of injury (Describe fully
exact location or amputations, fractures, right or left)
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
32.
Probable length of disability: Do not know
33. Has injured
returned to work? No If so, when?
Not applicable , 19____ ,
at what wage? N. A.
at what occupation? Not applicable
34. Did you provide
medical attention? No When
35. (a) Name and
address of attending physician Dr.
Mario C. Lirag
(b) Name and address of
hospital Quezon
Institute, Quezon
City “[3]
4. The Court finds no error
in law in the commission’s rulings that petitioner merely “pretended not
to know of the claimant’s illness, yet
it knew and reported the name of his attending physician, Dr. Mario C. Lirag, as well as the name and address of the hospital
where he was confined, namely, the Quezon Institute
in Quezon City.
FurtherÂmore, Dr. Lirag certified in his
physician’s report that he commenced treatment on the claimant for his
pulmonary tuberculosis on March 30, 1967, which since then had
caused the claimant total temporary disability for labor for an indefinite period. This statement is corroborative of, and
consistent with the allegation of the claimant in his claim that on March 26, 1967, he vomitted blood while operating the cone-winding maÂchine of
the (petitioner), as a result of which he had to stop working since then. In view of the foregoing considerations, the
disclaimer of the (petitioner) as to any knowledge of the claimant’s illness
and his subsequent disability acquires a hollow and false ring. Under the circumstances, one is impelled
to believe that the (petitioner) learned of the claimant’s disabiÂlity on March 28, 1967, on the same
day it began, and it was therefore inÂcumbent upon it to have controverted the right to compensation of the claimant
within a period of 14 days after such disability. However, as alÂready alluded to, it filed the
employer’s report only on September
19, 1967 containing a pro-forma statement of controversion, which as we have pointed out, is fatally
deficient in form and substance. Even if
such notice had been filed on time, it may not under the circumstance, be
considered a valid controversion.“[4]
5. The Court further finds
that the commission therefore correctly ruled that “the failure to
controvert within the period prescribed by law works as a forfeiture of all
non-jurisdictional defenses available under the Act, including the defense that
the claim is not compensable”, in accordance with section 45 of the
Workmen’s Compensation Act, as amended, and long-settled jurisprudence.[5]
6. The consequences of such
failure to controvert were thus corÂrectly stated by the commission: “In specific terms, it means that the
respondent may not interpose and
prove by evidence its affirmative defenses in avoidance of its liability. In
view thereof, the evidence of the claimant showing that his illness was
aggravated by the nature and conditions of his employment with the respondent
stands unrebutted.
And the records show that upon examination by Dr. Lirag
of the claimant immediately after the latter suffered hemoptysis
which he alleged occurred on March 28, 1967 in the course of employment, it was found
out that he had moderately adÂvanced pulmonary tuberculosis. Considering the nature of his work as machine
operator, his illness would not have progressed to an advanced stage without having
been aggravated one way or the other by the exertion and strain inherent in the
performance of the duties of his job.
After he stopped working and underwent treatment at the hands of a
competent phyÂsician, his illness began to regress, a fact which further
accrues to emÂphasize by implication, its work-connection. Under the circumstances, we need not even
invoke the statutory presumption of compensability to tilt the balance in favor
of the claimant.”[6]
7. Finally, it must be noted
that petitioner’s motion for reconsideration against the award, which
found that “an examination of the records show that no such employer’s
report (with controversion) was filed by
respondent. Granting for the sake of
argument that this office received the same, yet the claim cannot be considered
controverted as alleged, pursuant to section 4, Rule
6 of the Workmen’s Compensation Commission,”[7]
as well as its motion for reconsideration of the deÂcision affirming the
award on the ground of alleged timely controversion
and for an opportunity “to present its evidence showing its non-liability
to the claim of the claimant” both suffer from fatal defects. They were neither verified nor were
affidavits of merit appended to support its petiÂtion for a new hearing, which
would properly indicate that it has a valid defense against the claim and the
nature thereof.[8]
If the new hearing insisted upon by petitioner would not after
all alter the conclusions reached in the decision upon the evidence of record
and hence the alleged defense against the claim is legally ineffective, it
would be a needless waste of time and would merely undermine the law’s measure
of public policy designed to compel due observance of the statutory
requirements as well as to protect the rights of the claimant worker[9]
to set aside the decision and to remand the case for a new hearing, as sought
in the petition.
ACCORDINGLY, the petition is hereby dismissed and the
decision appealed from is hereby affirmed in toto. With costs against petitioner.
Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Makalintal, Zaldivar, Castro,
Fernando, Barredo, Villamor,
and Makasiar,
JJ., concur.
[1]
Petitioner’s brief, p. 18; emphasis furnished.
[2]
Emphasis furnished.
[3]
Rollo, pp. 20-21.
[4]
Emphasis and notes in parentheses furnished.
[5]
See cases cited in Pucan & Besinga’s Workmen’s
Compensation Act,
1971 Ed., pp. 453-459.
[6]
Emphasis furnished.
[7]
Rollo, p. 26; note in parentheses supplied.
[8]
Filipino Pipe & Foundry Corp. vs. WCC, 9 SCRA 721 (Dec. 24, 1963);
Rule 38, section 3, Rules of Court.
[9]
Agustin vs. WCC, 12 SCRA 55 (Sept.
29, 1964).