Atty. Julius Gregory Delgado
G & S TRANSPORT CORPORATION VS. MEDINA, G.R. NO. 243768 (SEPTEMBER 5, 2022):
FIGHTING IN THE WORK PREMISES BUT WITH NO INTENTION TO CAUSE BODILY HARM CANNOT BE CONSIDERED AS SERIOUS MISCONDUCT AS A JUST CAUSE TO DISMISS AN EMPLOYEE
Petitioner G & S Transport Corporation, more popularly known as Avis Rent-a-Car, is a corporation engaged in the business of renting cars to the public. Sometime in 2015, respondent Reynaldo Medina was hired primarily responsible for fetching tourists to and from the airport and onward to their next destination. Respondent Medina was under the employ of the petitioner for seven (7) years without any issue or derogatory record until the night of February 12, 2015, wherein, he was engaged in an altercation with a co-employee in the garage or work premises of the petitioner G & S.
Based on the records, respondent Medina was supposedly about to end his shift from 6:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and leave the premises but at the gate, he chanced upon co-employee Felix Pogoy who was staring at him. Respondent Medina asked if there was any problem to which Pogoy fired back the same question. A melee broke out between the two until another employee, Jose Viggayan, broke them up and led respondent Medina away from Pogoy. Petitioner G & S, however, maintained that Medina was drunk when he assaulted Pogoy to the point of boxing and strangling the latter. In fact, petitioner G & S maintained that the two (2) had to be restrained by the security guards.
Based on the Code of Conduct, petitioner G & S terminated respondent Medina’s employment for which reason the latter filed a case for illegal dismissal before the Labor Arbiter. Both the Labor Arbiter and the National Labor Relations Commission (“NLRC”) ruled in favor of petitioner G & S. However, the Court of Appeals reversed and set aside the rulings of the Labor Arbiter and the NLRC.
On the procedural issue, petitioner G & S assailed and alleged that the Court of Appeals committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or in excess of jurisdiction for reversing and setting aside the rulings of the Labor Arbiter and the NLRC. Petitioner G & S averred that the factual findings of both the Labor Arbiter and the NLRC should be given weight in ascertaining labor matters. However, the Supreme Court, in sustaining the ruling of the Court of Appeals, held that the appellate court is not precluded from reviewing evidence allegedly to be arbitrarily considered or otherwise disregarded by the NLRC. The Court held that it is the Court of Appeals’ power to examine the records and evaluate the pieces of evidence in order to confirm their materiality and significance, and to regard the labor tribunal’s factual findings whenever its conclusions were not substantiated by the evidence of record. The Court of Appeals may review evidence alleged to have been capriciously, whimsically and arbitrarily relied upon or disregarded.
On the substantive issue, the Supreme Court ruled that the testimony of their co-employee Vigayyan and transcript of the administrative hearing, it was found out that as correctly held by the Court of Appeals, it was a petty quarrel that merely involved shoving or slight pushing which does not amount to Serious Misconduct as would be a ground for the termination of an employment. The Court highlighted the elements of Misconduct as follows:
“In labor cases, misconduct, as a ground for dismissal, must be serious or of such grave and aggravated character and not merely trivial or unimportant. To justify termination on the ground of serious misconduct, the following requisites must concur: (1) the misconduct must be serious; (2) it must relate to the performance of the employee’s duties, showing that the employee has become unfit to continue working for the employer; and (3) it must have been performed with wrongful intent.”
The Court held:
“’Here, none of the requisites for serious misconduct is present. To reiterate, the CA found that only a petty quarrel involving shoving or slight pushing transpired between Medina and Pogoy. The same was nipped in the bud by the intervention of the security guards on duty and Viggayan. It did not cause work stoppage nor posed a threat to the safety of the other employees. [G&S] did not show how [Medina’s] misconduct has adversely affected its business, or how [Medina] has become unfit to continue working for the company.’ Thus, there was no just cause for the termination of Medina’s employment with G&S.”
The Court also held that “the penalty of dismissal is too harsh and is not commensurate with the act committed. Also, the Court considered that Medina had been employed for seven (7) years and only recently involved in any for misconduct. Absent any evidence showing seriousness and aggravated character of the misconduct, the extreme penalty of dismissal should not have been imposed.
The crucial and determining factor was the minutes of the administrative hearing wherein the two (2) employees were not engaged in a fistfight but was merely shoving each other with no intention to cause bodily harm against one another. Hence, the same does not constitute Grave Misconduct as would justify dismissal from the Company.