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Monday, January 16, 2006
Employer-employee relationship
By Dominador A. Almirante
Labor case digest
Respondent Rogelio Ejandra worked as a bus driver of petitioner R. Transport Corp. for six years. In a complaint for illegal dismissal, R. Transport invoked the defense that Ejandra was not an employee because theirs was a contract of lease and not of employment, with the latter being paid on commission basis. Was the defense meritorious?
Ruling: No.
Petitioner is barred to negate the existence of an employer-employee relationship. In its petition filed before this Court, petitioner invoked our rulings on the right of an employer to dismiss an employee for just cause. Petitioner maintained that respondent was justifiably dismissed due to abandonment of work. By adopting said rulings, petitioner impliedly admitted that it was, in fact, the employer of private respondent.
According to the control test, the power to dismiss an employee is one of the indications of an employer-employee relationship. Petitioner’s claim that private respondent was legally dismissed for abandonment was, in fact, a negative pregnant: An acknowledgement that there was no mutual termination of the alleged contract of lease and that private respondent was its employee. The fact that petitioner paid respondent on commission basis did not rule out the presence of an employer-employee relationship. Article 97 (f) of the Labor Code clearly provides that an employee’s wages can be in the form of commissions. (R. Transport Corp. versus Rogelio Ejandra, G.R. 148508, May 20, 2004)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (January 16, 2006 issue)
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