DOMINGO ABAD, TEODORICO ABUAN, RODOLFO ADRIATICO, DAVID ALAMBRA, ARTURO AMBROCIO, ALFREDO APILADO, LAUREANO APILADO, RODOLFO ARIZ, JOSE BALAGOT, MARIANO BALAGOT, JOSE BARNACHEA,…

Abad versus Atlantic Gulf and Pacific Company

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari brought by a large group of workers against their former employer, the Atlantic Gulf and Pacific Company, a construction firm engaged in building offshore marine structures for third parties. The workers had been hired through the company's Offshore and Marine Services Division and assigned to its fabrication operations at Poro Point in San Fernando, La Union, known as the Poro Point Project. They claimed they were regular employees entitled to the benefits of regular workers, including those granted under the company's collective bargaining agreement, while the company treated them as project workers hired only for definite periods. The case matters because it is the Supreme Court's clean statement of two rules every labor lawyer must carry: the reach of stare decisis, meaning the doctrine that a conclusion reached in one case should be applied to later cases with substantially the same facts even though the parties are different, and the strict requirement of a motion for reconsideration before a petition for certiorari may be filed against a decision of the National Labor Relations Commission.

Procedural History

The workers instituted two separate complaints before the National Labor Relations Commission, praying for reinstatement and alleging that they were non-project employees who should have become regular after completing one year of service. In 1977 both complaints were archived upon the workers' own motion, so that hearings could be held in abeyance pending the outcome of an identical and analogous case, the Abuan case, then pending on appeal in the Office of the Secretary of Labor. That case was elevated to the Supreme Court and was finally decided in July 1980, when the Court denied the workers' motion for reconsideration for lack of merit. The workers moved to revive their complaints in November 1981 and again in April 1986, but the motions could not be resolved because the records could not be located. After a motion to reconstitute the records was filed in June 1987, the records were located and forwarded to the Region I Arbitration Branch in San Fernando, La Union. In August 1991 the Labor Arbiter ruled in favor of the workers, holding them non-project employees, and ordered reinstatement, full backwages and other benefits, with separation pay in the alternative, plus benefits and salary increases they would have received as regular employees, with legal interest, litigation expenses and attorney's fees. The company appealed, and the National Labor Relations Commission reversed in a decision dated November 17, 1992, applying the Abuan ruling, although it ordered the company to pay backwages for its failure to reinstate the workers pending appeal. The workers then filed this petition for certiorari before the Supreme Court, alleging grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction in the Commission's reliance on stare decisis.

Facts

The company hired the workers through its Offshore and Marine Services Division for its Poro Point Project, where materials needed for its construction activities were fabricated. The company treated them as project workers, claiming that hiring was based on the availability of project contracts and was done on and off, with tenure depending on the need for each worker's particular skills. The workers had been in the company's service for three to ten years until their termination on different dates during the period from 1973 to 1976.

Before the Labor Arbiter, the workers claimed that the company made them sign employment contracts every fifteenth and thirtieth of every month, and that when presented for signing these contracts contained blanks as to the workers' designation, rate of wages, duration of employment, the name of the project, and the duration of the project. The Labor Arbiter also found that the workers continued working even when there were no major projects, performing jobs related to maintenance, repair, planning and programming of existing and prospective projects, and that their service records showed unbroken service although they were hired in different capacities in different periods.

The National Labor Relations Commission, reversing, found that the workers, like the complainants in the Abuan case, worked in the Poro Point Project under contracts of fifteen to thirty days, that the contracts specified the projects to which they were assigned, and that they were separated upon expiration of their contracts. The Commission noted that the workers themselves had admitted the similarity of their case to Abuan when they asked that hearings be held in abeyance to avoid conflicting decisions.

Issues

• Whether or not the National Labor Relations Commission committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction in reversing the Labor Arbiter's decision by applying the principle of stare decisis on the basis of the earlier Abuan case.
• Whether or not the workers were regular employees rather than project employees.
• Whether or not the petition for certiorari may be entertained despite the workers' failure to first file a motion for reconsideration of the assailed decision of the National Labor Relations Commission.

Applicable Provisions

Article 280 of the Labor Code, as quoted in the decision, defines project employees:

They are workers whose employment has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking the completion or termination of which has been determined at the time of their engagement.

This is the test the Court applies in holding that the workers were project employees assigned to a particular construction project.

Rule 65, Section 1 of the Rules of Court, as discussed in the decision, governs the special civil action of certiorari:

A petition for certiorari may be filed in case a tribunal, board or officer exercising judicial or quasi-judicial functions has acted without or in excess of jurisdiction, or with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction, and there is no appeal, or any plain, speedy, and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law.

This is the remedy the workers invoked, and its requirements determine whether their petition can prosper.

Rule VII, Section 14 of the New Rules of Procedure of the National Labor Relations Commission, as stated in the decision, fixes the period for reconsideration:

A motion for reconsideration must be filed within ten days from a party's receipt of a copy of the decision.

This period makes the motion for reconsideration the available plain, speedy and adequate remedy that must be exhausted before certiorari is resorted to.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that there was clearly no grave abuse of discretion on the part of the National Labor Relations Commission in applying the rule in Abuan to these cases. The Commission's decision in Abuan was based on the same facts and issues, so it was but proper and logical for the Commission to arrive at the same conclusions in the two cases. The Court recalled that the workers themselves had asked for deferment of the hearings because of the pendency of the identical and analogous Abuan case, precisely to avoid any conflicting decision. The Court quoted the Commission's statement of the doctrine:

Stare decisis declares that, for the sake of certainty, a conclusion reached in one case should be applied to those which follow, if the facts are substantially the same, even though the parties may be different.

The Court compared the two sets of workers and found them similarly situated: all were hired for the Poro Point Project and attached to the same division, all had contracts of fifteen to thirty days renewed several times so that they spent more than a year in service, and all were separated upon completion of the projects to which they were assigned, after which they sought the same relief of recognition of regular status, reinstatement, and payment of salaries and benefits due regular workers.

On the second issue, the Court held that the workers were project employees, assigned to work in a particular construction project, and applied Article 280 of the Labor Code. It rejected the argument that the signing of blank contracts made them regular, noting that a similar assertion by the workers in Abuan had been rejected by the Commission. The Court distinguished the case of Caramol against the National Labor Relations Commission, cited by the Solicitor General, where the worker was held a regular employee because he was renewed forty-four times and performed only one type of work as a rigger throughout thirteen years. Here, the Court found that each of the workers, or at least a majority of them, was hired in different capacities during different periods of employment, which indicated that they were indeed hired based on the company's need for a worker's particular skills. The Court likewise distinguished the similar case of Samson against the National Labor Relations Commission.

On the third issue, the Court held that the petition was filed without first filing a motion for reconsideration of the assailed decision. The filing of a motion for reconsideration of the decision of the National Labor Relations Commission is a prerequisite for availing of the remedy of a petition for certiorari before the Supreme Court, and the workers' failure to file such a motion is fatal to their petition.

Doctrine

First, under the principle of stare decisis, a conclusion reached in one case should be applied to those which follow if the facts are substantially the same, even though the parties may be different, for the sake of certainty. A party who itself asks that proceedings be held in abeyance pending another case on the ground that the cases are identical and analogous cannot later complain when the tribunal applies that earlier ruling.

Second, project employees are workers whose employment has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking the completion or termination of which has been determined at the time of their engagement, as Article 280 of the Labor Code provides. Successive short contracts renewed many times do not by themselves make a worker regular where the worker is hired in different capacities according to the employer's need for particular skills; the contrast is with a worker repeatedly renewed while performing only one type of work usually necessary or desirable in the employer's usual business or trade.

Third, a motion for reconsideration of a decision of the National Labor Relations Commission, filed within ten days from receipt of a copy of the decision, is a prerequisite for a petition for certiorari before the Supreme Court, because it is the plain, speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law that must first be exhausted.

Disposition

The petition was denied and the decision of the National Labor Relations Commission was affirmed, so the company prevailed and the workers' claim of regular employment failed.

Remember This

Memorize the line that stare decisis applies where the facts are substantially the same even though the parties are different, and that a motion for reconsideration is a fatal prerequisite to certiorari against a National Labor Relations Commission decision. Examiners use this case to test the project employee versus regular employee distinction under Article 280 of the Labor Code, and to test the procedural trap of skipping the motion for reconsideration.