Saturday, April 21, 2007 90-day period in certiorari By Dominador A. Almirante Labor case digest
THE Court of Appeals (CA) dismissed the petition filed by petitioners under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court for having been filed beyond the 60-day reglementary period. Petitioners contended that the CA committed grave abuse of discretion in not relaxing the rules considering that the delay in the filing of the petition was due to a justifiable and excusable reasons: their failure to get a lawyer immediately and they still had to raise funds for expenses. Did the contention find merit?
Ruling: No, but the petition was still given due course.
Petitioners cannot blame the CA for dismissing their petition. When the petition was filed with the CA on September 27, 1999, the prevailing rule was Section 4, Rule 65 of the Rules of Court, which provided that the filing of the petition shall be 60 days from notice of judgment and a motion for reconsideration merely interrupted the running of the period. Since petitioners received the assailed NLRC Resolution dated March 12, 1999 on March 30, 1999, and they filed their motion for reconsideration on April 5, 1999, they had 54 days left from receipt of the denial of the motion for reconsideration, or from July 29, 1999, within which to file their petition. Having filed the petition only on September 27, 1999, the petition was filed 6 days late, and the CA had no other recourse but to dismiss the same.
Fortunately for petitioners, Section 4, Rule 65 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure was subsequently amended by A.M. No. 00-2-03-SC, which took effect on 1 September 2000. Under this amendment, the 60-day period within which to file the petition starts to run from receipt of notice of the denial of the motion for reconsideration, if one is filed. In Republic of the Philippines v. Court of Appeals, the new period was made applicable to pending cases, as rules of procedure “may be given retroactive effect to actions pending and undetermined at the time of their passage and this will not violate any right of a person who may feel that he is adversely affeced, inasmuch as there is no vested rights in rules of procedure. “Applying the amendment in petitioners’ case, the 60-day period should then be counted from July 29, 1999, with September 27, 1999 as the last day for filing. Having been filed on said date, the petition was therefore timely filed. (Tirso Enopia, et. al. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 147396, July 31, 2006.)
