MANILA RAILROAD COMPANY, PETITIONER, VS. THE WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION COMMISSION AND RICARDO BALMEO, RESPONDENTS.

This is a petition for review, filed by petition­er Manila
Railroad Company, hereinafter referred to as company, by way of an appeal from
the decision render­ed on July 15,
1963 by the Workmen’s Compensation Com­mission in WC Case No. 1839
and from the resolution of the said Commission en banc, dated August 23, 1963, denying the
company’s motion for reconsideration.

The pertinent facts as found by the Workmen’s Compensation Commission are, as follows:

Respondent Ricardo Balmeo, hereinafter
referred to as employee, started working with the company as a temporary
trackman on July 1, 1958, after having been subjected to a
pre-employment physical examination.  On August 16, 1960, he was appointed
permanent track man, with a salary of P1,500.00 per annum.  As a track­man the employee’s work included the
lifting or carry­ing of iron rails and “traviezas“,
loading and unload­ing them, and making repairs on damaged or broken rail­ways.  In the performance of his work the employee
was exposed to rain or to the heat of the sun. 
The nature of employee’s work was strenuous
and tiresome.  On Jan­uary 11, 1961, after working for
about two years, the employee was subjected to an X-ray examination, and was
found to be afflicted with pulmonary tuberculosis.  Despite the fact that the employee was found
to have pulmonary infection he was left to do the same kind of work that he had
been doing until June 16, 1961, when he was dismissed from the service due to
pulmonary tuberculosis.

On October 10, 1961,
almost four months after he was dismissed from the service, the employee filed with the
Department of Labor Regional Office No. 4 a claim for disability compensation
against the company.  On November 10, 1961, the company filed
its employer’s report of accident or sickness, and manifestation that it was
going to controvert the employee’s right to compensation.

On August 28, 1962, after due trial, the hearing officer of
Regional Office No. 4 rendered a decision, declaring the claim of the employee
meritorious and com­pensable, thereby awarding compensation benefits to the
employee.

Subsequently, the company filed before the Work­men’s
Compensation Commission a petition for review of the decision of the hearing
officer, upon the grounds that the said decision is contrary to law, that there
was no aggravation of the sickness of the employee, and that the findings in
the decision are not supported by the evidence.

Upon review, in a decision rendered on July 15, 1963 for the Workmen’s Compensation
Commission, Commis­sioner Cesareo Perez affirmed the
decision of the hearing officer. 
Commissioner Perez found, that the company failed to show the absence of
causal relation between the employment and the illness that caused the
employee’s disability for labor; that
there is basis for the conclusion that the employee’s illness was aggravated by
the nature of his work; and the company had not con­troverted
the employee’s claim on time as required in section 45 of the Workmen’s
Compensation Act (Act 3428), as
amended, it appearing that the
employee was disabled for labor on June 16, 1961, the day when he was dis­missed
from the service due to pulmonary tuberculosis, and it was only on November 10,
1961 when the company submitted to the Workmen’s Compensation Commission its
employer’s report of accident or sickness with manifesta­tion of its intention
to controvert the claim, and neither did the company seek the reinstatement of
its rights of controversion.  Commissioner Perez held that the failure of
the company to file a timely controversion of the
claim constitutes a constructive recognition of the
compensability of the claim.  The dispositive portion of the decision reads as follows:

“RESPONSIVE TO THE FOREGOING, the appealed decision should be,
as it is hereby,
AFFIRMED and the respondent ordered:

“(1) To pay to the claimant, thru this Commission, the amount of ONE
THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED SIXTY EIGHT and 40/100 PESOS (P1,868.40) as compensation
under Section 14 of the Act, as amended, computed as follows: 60% of his
average weekly wage of P28.84 (P1,500.00 divided by 52 weeks) equals P17.30 x
108 weeks (from June 16, 1961 to July 14, 1963, there are 759 days less the
3-day waiting period leaves 756 days or 108 weeks equals P1,868.40;

“(2) To pay the claimant, a weekly compensation of P17.30 starting
July 15, 1963 until his pulmonary tuberculosis is pronounced cured or arrested but
the total amount of compensation not to exceed P4,000.00;

“(3) To reimburse the claimant the sum of SEVEN HUNDRED FIFTY PESOS
(P750.00) as medical expenses;

“(4) To provide the claimant with further medical, surgical, and
hospital services and supplies as the nature of his illness may require until
the same is
cured or arrested;

“(5) To pay the sum of P140.13 as attorney’s fee; and

“(6) To pay to this Commission the sum of P24.00 as partial
cost.”

Not satisfied with the
decision rendered by Com­missioner Cesareo Perez, the
company filed a motion for reconsideration of said decision, but the Workmen’s
Compensation Commission en banc denied the motion, in a
resolution dated August 23, 1963.

In its appeal, now before this Court, the company does not question the
findings of the Workmen’s Com­pensation Commission regarding the compensability
of the employee’s disability.  The issue
raised by the company refers simply to the jurisdiction of the Workmen’s
Compensation Commission to hear and decide the employee’s claim for
compensation.  The company contends that
the Workmen’s Compensation Commission had not acquired juris­diction over this
case because the claimant-employee had not complied with the requirements of
Section 24 of Act 3428, in that said
employee had not given a timely
notice of his sickness to his employer and had not filed his claim for
compensation within two months after the date of his sickness.  In other words, the company con­tends that
the giving of notice and the filing of the claim for compensation within the
period prescribed in Section 24 of Act 3428 are conditions precedent and
jurisdictional requirements which must be complied with before the Workmen’s
Compensation Commission may hear and determine claims for disability compensation.

The contention of the
company has no merit.  It is now a very
well settled rule in this jurisdiction that failure on the part of the employee
to comply with the requirements of Section 24 of Act 3428–that is, the giving
of notice and the filing of claim within the time prescribed in said section–is
non-jurisdictional.^[1] It is also a settled rule that
failure or delay in giving notice, as provided in Section 24
of the law, shall not be a bar to the proceeding in the claim
for compensation if it is shown
that the employer, his agent or
representative, has knowledge of the injury, sick­ness, or death, or that the
employer did not suffer by such delay or failure.^[2] And then, it is likewise a set­tled rule that even if a claim for
compensation is filed beyond the period prescribed in Section 24 of Act 3428 when it is shown that the employer has not
manifested to the Workmen’s Compensation Commission his intention to controvert
the right to compensation, either on or before the fourteenth day of disability
or within ten days after he has
knowledge of the accident, the
Work­men’s Compensation Commission can proceed to determine and decide the
claim for compensation.^[3]

The record shows that the company, since January 11, 1961, had knowledge
of the disease suffered by the employee, and the employee was left to continue
working, and the company never bothered to comply with the law by serving
notice of such illness or disease with the Workmen’s Compensation Commission,
nor by filing the employer’s report of accident or sickness, as required under Section 37 of Act
3428 (Workmen’s Compensation Act), as amended. 
Likewise, the record shows that the employee was disabled for labor on
June 16, 1961 when he was dismissed from the service due to pulmonary tuber­culosis,
in which case the company had up to June 30, 1961–the fourteenth day from the
date of claimant’s disability–within which to file the notice of contro­version as required
by Section 45 of Act 3428, as amended. 
The employee filed his claim for disability compensation with the
Workmen’s Compensation Commission on October
10, 1961.  It was only on
November 10, 1961, a month after the employee had filed his claim, that the
company filed its employer’s report of accident or sickness, with a
manifestation to contest the claim of the employee.  When the company filed its employer’s report
on November 10, 1961 it did not accompany it with a petition for the
reinstatement of its right for controversion nor did
it submit reasonable grounds to justify its failure to make the necessary
report and controversion on time.

It is clear, therefore,
that for having failed to controvert the claim of the employee within the
period of fourteen days from June 16, 1961, the day when it dismissed
the employee because of disability to work due to pulmonary tuberculosis, and
because the company did not seek for reinstatement of its right to controvert
the claim, the company is thereby considered, under the law, as having
renounced its right to controvert the compensability of the employee’s
disability, and it can­not now contest the employee’s claim upon the ground of
the employee’s failure to comply with the requirement of Section 24 of Act
3428, as amended.

Under the law, and pursuant to the rulings of this Court in many decided cases,
it is the employer that must comply strictly with the requirements of the law
regarding the giving of notice, of the accident, injury or sickness of its
employee, to the Workmen’s Com­pensation Commission, and the employer must give
notice to the Workmen’s Compensation Commission of its decision to controvert the right of the injured or
disabled employee to compensation within fourteen days after its knowledge of
the employee’s disability, or within ten days after its knowledge
of any accident that caused injury to the employee; and failure of the employer or the insurance carrier to comply with this requirements of the law
shall consti­tute a renunciation of his/its right to controvert the
claim unless he/it submits reasonable grounds for the failure to make the
required report and notice of con­troversion to the
Workmen’s Compensation Commission, on the basis of which grounds the Workmen’s
Compensation Commission may reinstate his/its right to controvert.^[4]

It appearing, in the present case, that the Company has not
complied with its obligations under the law, as pointed out in the preceding paragraph, the Workmen’s
Compensation Commission did not err in enter­taining and deciding the claim for
compensation filed by the employee.  The
fact that the employee filed his claim beyond the period of two months after
his dis­ability is not a bar to the award of compensation if the claim is found to be meritorious, as in
fact the Workmen’s Compensation Commission has found said claim meritorious in
the present case.

WHEREFORE, the instant petition for review should be, as it is hereby, dismissed, and the
decision and resolution of the respondent Workmen’s Compensation Com­mission
appealed from are affirmed, with costs against petitioner Manila Railroad
Company.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Reyes, J.B.L., Makalintal, Bengzon, Sanchez, Castro, Angeles, and Fernando, JJ., concur.

Concepcion, C.J., Dizon,
J., took no part.

^[1]
Victorias Milling Co., Inc. v. Villanueva, et al., G. R. No.L-10533, May 13, 1957; Century Insurance Co., Inc. v. Fuentes, et al., G. R. No.
L-16039, August 31, 1961.

^[2]
Section 27, Act 3428; Paez v. Workmen’s Compensation Commission, et al., G.R. No.
L-18438, March 30, 1963; Pangasinan Transportation Co., Inc. v. Workmen’s
Compensa­tion Commission, et al., G.R. No. L-16490, June 29, 1963.

^[3]
Section 45, Act 3428; Martha Lumber Mill Inc. v. Workmen’s Compensation
Commission, G. R. No. L-7599, June 27,
1956; Tan Lim Te v. Workmen’s Compensation Commission, et
al., G. R. No. L-12324, August 30, 1958; Iloilo
Dock and Engineering Co. v. Workmen’s Compensation Commission, et al.,
G. R. No.L-17283, July 31, 1962;
National Power Corporation v. Workmen’s Compensation Commission, et al.,
G. R. No. L-19843, January 30, 1965;
National Development Co. v. Workmen’s Compensation Commission, et al.,
G. R. No. L-20504, March 31, 1965.

^[4]
Sections 37 and 45, Act 3428; See cases cited in footnotes 1, 2 and 3.