SAMEER OVERSEAS PLACEMENT AGENCY, INC., PETITIONER, VS. MILDRED R. SANTOS, IN HER OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS PRESIDENT OF, AND/OR ASBT INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT SERVICE, INC., LORD NEL…

Sameer Overseas Placement Agency versus Santos

The Case

This is a petition for review on certiorari brought by Sameer Overseas Placement Agency, Incorporated against Mildred Santos, in her capacity as President of ASBT International Management Service, Incorporated, and against the National Labor Relations Commission. Sameer asks the Supreme Court to reverse the Court of Appeals, which had set aside the labor tribunal's ruling and held Sameer, not ASBT, liable to a group of overseas workers. The case matters for two reasons a reviewee must hold onto: it settles who may sign a corporate party's pleadings, and it draws the outer boundary of the prohibition against forum shopping.

Procedural History

The workers filed complaints before the National Labor Relations Commission. The Labor Arbiter ruled against Sameer and ordered it to pay the workers their salary differentials, the salaries for the unexpired portion of their contracts, refunds of placement and guaranty fees, plane ticket costs, moral damages, and attorney's fees. Sameer appealed to the National Labor Relations Commission, which set aside the Labor Arbiter's decision, absolved Sameer on the ground that its accreditation had been transferred to ASBT, and ordered ASBT to pay. ASBT moved for reconsideration, and the Commission denied it.

ASBT then went up to the Court of Appeals by a petition for certiorari under Rule 65. The appellate court first dismissed the petition because the attached verification and certification against forum shopping was signed by Mildred Santos as corporate president without proof of her authority. ASBT moved for reconsideration and submitted the board resolution. The appellate court reinstated the petition and, on the merits, ruled for ASBT, setting aside the labor tribunal's decision and ordering Sameer to pay the workers. Sameer's motion for reconsideration was denied. Hence this petition for review on certiorari before the Supreme Court.

Facts

In December 1995, Sameer recruited Lord Nelson Santos and four others as aluminum products manufacturer operators for Ensure Company Limited of Taiwan, under one-year employment contracts with a basic monthly salary of fourteen thousand eight hundred New Taiwan dollars. The workers were deployed and did work for Ensure, but they were repatriated before their contracts expired. In July and August 1996 they filed complaints against Sameer for illegal dismissal, underpayment of salaries, and unauthorized salary deductions.

Sameer then filed a third party complaint against ASBT, claiming that ASBT should answer for all of Ensure's contractual obligations because Sameer's accreditation had been transferred to ASBT in June 1997. The Labor Arbiter ruled against Sameer. On appeal, the labor tribunal shifted liability to ASBT on the strength of that transfer.

The Court of Appeals, however, found that Sameer itself had hired and deployed the workers, that Sameer received the placement fees, that the workers were repatriated in 1996, well before the supposed transfer of accreditation in June 1997, and that Sameer had failed to prove that Ensure and the entity named in the transfer were one and the same. The appellate court thus held Sameer liable and dismissed the other claims.

Issues

• Whether or not a petition and a motion for reconsideration signed by a corporate president, rather than by counsel, are unsigned pleadings that produce no legal effect.
• Whether or not ASBT committed forum shopping when its dismissed petition was reinstated upon a motion for reconsideration and later decided by a different division of the same appellate court.
• Whether or not the Court of Appeals correctly held Sameer liable to the workers instead of ASBT.

Applicable Provisions

Section 3 of Rule 7 of the Rules of Civil Procedure provides:

SEC. 3. Signature and address.--Every pleading must be signed by the party or counsel representing him, stating in either case his address which should not be a post office box. The signature of counsel constitutes a certificate by him that he has read the pleading; that to the best of his knowledge, information, and belief there is good ground to support it; and that it is not interposed for delay. An unsigned pleading produces no legal effect. However, the court ay, in its discretion, allow such deficiency to be remedied if it shall appear that the same was due to mere inadvertence and not intended for delay. Counsel who deliberately files an unsigned pleading, or signs a pleading in violation of this Rule, or alleges scandalous or indecent matter therein, or fails to promptly report to the court a change of his address, shall be subject to appropriate disciplinary action.

This provision governs the first issue, because it tells us whether the signature of the corporate president saved ASBT's pleadings or left them without legal effect.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the pleadings were validly signed. The rule plainly allows a pleading to be signed either by the party or by counsel representing that party. ASBT chose to sign in its own behalf through its corporate president, who had been duly authorized by its board of directors. The pleadings were therefore not unsigned and carried legal effect.

On the second issue, the Court held that there was no forum shopping. Forum shopping is the act of a party against whom an adverse judgment has been rendered in one forum of seeking a favorable opinion in another forum, other than by appeal or certiorari, or the institution of two or more actions grounded on the same cause. Its elements track those of litis pendentia, which means a pending suit: identity of parties, identity of rights and relief founded on the same facts, and a judgment in one that would amount to res judicata in the other. None of these was present. What ASBT filed was simply a motion for reconsideration of a dismissal on a technical ground, not a new petition. The Seventh Division and the Fourth Division are not different fora; they are mere divisions of one and the same Court of Appeals. ASBT never filed a second petition.

On the third issue, the Court upheld the appellate court's finding that Sameer was the employer that recruited and deployed the workers and received their placement fees, and that the workers were repatriated long before the claimed transfer of accreditation. Sameer failed to prove that the foreign employer named in the transfer was the same entity it had dealt with. Sameer therefore remained liable.

Doctrine

First, under Section 3 of Rule 7, a pleading may be signed either by the party or by counsel, and a corporation may sign through its duly authorized officer; once authority is shown, the pleading is not unsigned and produces legal effect. Second, forum shopping requires the elements of litis pendentia, and a motion for reconsideration of a dismissal on technical grounds is not a separate action; divisions of a single court are not separate fora. Third, the recruiter that hired and deployed the worker and collected the placement fees bears the liability, and it cannot escape by pointing to a later transfer of accreditation that postdates the worker's repatriation.

Disposition

The Supreme Court denied Sameer's petition for lack of merit and affirmed the Court of Appeals, with costs against Sameer.

Remember This

Memorize this line: a pleading signed by a duly authorized corporate officer is validly signed, and a motion for reconsideration is not forum shopping. Examiners use this case to test the signature rule under Rule 7 and the elements of forum shopping.