MALAYANG KAPISANAN NG MGA MANGGAGAWA SA ASSOCIATED ANGLO AMERICAN TOBACCO CORPORATION (MAKAMANGGA- GAWA), JAIME BERMUDEZ, ET AL., Petitioners, vs. ASSOCIATED ANGLO AMERICAN TOBA…

Malayang Kapisanan ng mga Manggagawa sa Associated Anglo American Tobacco Corporation versus Associated Anglo American Tobacco Corporation

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 filed with the Supreme Court by a labor union and forty-four of its individual members against their employer, Associated Anglo American Tobacco Corporation. The petitioners ask the Court to annul two resolutions of the Court of Appeals which dismissed their own petition for certiorari for procedural defects. The case matters because it is a clean teaching vehicle on two procedural rules every Bar candidate must master: the certification of non-forum shopping, and the rule that certiorari under Rule 65 cannot be used as a substitute for a lost appeal.

Procedural History

The dispute began in labor proceedings. The individual petitioners filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Commission through a Labor Arbiter, who dismissed the complaints for lack of merit. The National Labor Relations Commission affirmed the dismissal in full, and denied the petitioners' motion for reconsideration.

The petitioners then went up to the Court of Appeals by a petition for certiorari. The Court of Appeals dismissed the petition because only one of the petitioners executed the verification and certification of non-forum shopping, without submitting proof that she was authorized to represent the others. The petitioners moved for reconsideration, and the motion was denied. The petitioners then came to the Supreme Court by this petition for certiorari under Rule 65.

Facts

The union and the company entered into a collective bargaining agreement in September 1996. In April 1998 they signed a memorandum of agreement placing a moratorium on negotiations for the forthcoming collective bargaining agreement. In December 1998 they met to discuss wage increases for 1999, but the negotiations broke down, and in February 1999 the union filed a notice of strike with the National Conciliation and Mediation Board.

In March 1999 the union staged a strike. In April 1999 the company announced the closure or cessation of its business operations and applied for a notice of closure with the Department of Labor and Employment, citing serious business losses. The parties then executed another memorandum of agreement referring their dispute to an accredited voluntary arbitrator. The voluntary arbitrator issued a decision finding the closure legal and awarding financial assistance to the workers, and the parties executed a document setting out the mechanics for releasing goods and making payments to implement that decision. The strike was lifted, and all the striking employees except forty-four union members executed affidavits of quitclaim and release in favor of the company.

Those forty-four members questioned the arbitrator's award before the Court of Appeals, which dismissed their petition; their petition for review to the Supreme Court was likewise dismissed, and reconsideration was denied. Meanwhile, the same forty-four persons filed complaints with the Labor Arbiter, which were dismissed for lack of merit and affirmed by the National Labor Relations Commission. It was from that affirmance that they filed the petition for certiorari in the Court of Appeals, which was dismissed on the verification and certification defect, and which is now the subject of this petition.

Issues

• Whether or not the Court of Appeals gravely abused its discretion in dismissing the petition for certiorari solely on the ground that the verification and certification of non-forum shopping was signed by only one of the petitioners, who is herself a real party in interest.
• Whether or not the Court of Appeals gravely abused its discretion in dismissing the petition and in failing to apply the settled doctrine on the liberal application of technical rules.

Applicable Provisions

Section 1 of Rule 65 of the Rules of Court provides:

When any tribunal, board or officer exercising judicial or quasi-judicial functions has acted without or in excess of its or his 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, a person aggrieved thereby may file a verified petition in the proper court, alleging the facts with certainty and praying that judgment be rendered annulling or modifying the proceedings of such tribunal, board or officer, and granting such incidental reliefs as law and justice may require.

This provision is decisive because it makes the absence of an appeal or other plain, speedy, and adequate remedy a condition for certiorari, and the petitioners had a plain remedy by appeal.

Section 6 of Rule 1 of the Rules of Court provides:

These Rules shall be liberally construed in order to promote their objective of securing a just, speedy and inexpensive disposition of every action and proceeding.

This provision is the basis for the petitioners' plea for liberality, which the Court weighs against the need for orderly procedure.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court conceded that it has relaxed the rule requiring all petitioners to sign the certification of non-forum shopping, and that the signature of only one petitioner may be substantial compliance where all petitioners share a common interest and a common cause of action. The petitioners here did share a common cause of action, that of illegal dismissal. But the Court held that this did not save the petition, because a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 may be resorted to only if there is no appeal or any plain, speedy, and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law.

On the second issue, the Court held that the petition was in truth a substitute for a lost appeal. The petitioners could have appealed to the Supreme Court by a petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45, but no such petition was filed within the reglementary period, so the decision of the Court of Appeals became final and executory. The Court stressed that when a decision becomes final and executory, the court loses jurisdiction over the case, and not even an appellate court has the power to review it. The Court also noted that the petitioners never discussed why the Labor Arbiter and the National Labor Relations Commission erred in finding them guilty of forum shopping. Quoting its own ruling, the Court reminded that litigation is not a game of technicalities, but that rules of procedure must be faithfully followed, and that a party invoking liberality must explain its failure to abide by the rules.

Doctrine

First, a certification of non-forum shopping signed by only one of several petitioners may be treated as substantial compliance where all petitioners share a common interest and a common cause of action or defense.

Second, and decisively, certiorari under Rule 65 is not available where the aggrieved party has a plain, speedy, and adequate remedy by appeal in the ordinary course of law. The two remedies are mutually exclusive, and certiorari cannot co-exist with an appeal.

Third, the Court may treat a petition for certiorari as one filed under Rule 45 in the interest of justice, but not where the petition was filed well beyond the reglementary period for a petition for review and without offering any reason for the delay.

Fourth, once a decision becomes final and executory, the court loses jurisdiction, and the rule on finality exists so that there may be an end to litigation.

Disposition

The petition was dismissed for lack of merit, and the dismissal by the Court of Appeals stood.

Remember This

Memorize the line that certiorari cannot co-exist with an appeal, for the two remedies are mutually exclusive. Examiners use this case to test whether a candidate will spot a Rule 65 petition that is really a lost appeal filed too late, and whether the common-interest exception to the certification rule can ever cure that fatal defect.