IN the hearings set by the labor arbiter, the petitioner failed to appear despite notice. On the date set for the filing of position paper, he instead filed a motion to dismiss on the ground of lack of jurisdiction.
He alleged that while he was the owner of RAF Mansion Hotel building, the same was leased to Victoriano Ewayan, the owner of Oceanic Travel and Tour Agency. He claims that Ewayan was the employer of private respondents. Consequently, he asserted that there was no employer-employee relationship between him and private respondents and the labor arbiter had no jurisdiction over the case.
The labor arbiter denied the motion to dismiss for having been belatedly filed. He found respondents illegally dismissed and ordered petitioner to pay them full backwages and other monetary claims.
Instead of filing an appeal before the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC), the petitioner instituted a petition for annulment of judgment which the NLRC dismissed for being tardy, as it was filed beyond the ten-day reglementary period.
The Court of Appeals (CA) sustained the labor arbiter and the NLRC.
Did the CA commit a reversible error?
Ruling: Yes.
Thus, to allow respondents to recover their monetary claims from petitioner would necessarily result in their unjust enrichment.
•••
Taking this to mind, the labor tribunals and the CA should have considered petitioner’s repeated pleas to scrutinize the facts and particularly the lease agreement executed by him and Oceanic, which would naturally exculpate him from liability, as this would prove the absence of an employment relation between him and respondents.
Instead, the case was determined on pure technicality which, in labor disputes, is not necessarily sanctioned – given that proceedings before the labor arbiter and the NLRC are non-litigious in nature where they are encouraged to avail themselves of all reasonable means to ascertain the facts of the case without regard to technicalities of law or procedure. Petitioner’s motion to dismiss, though belated, should have been given due attention.
In arriving at the foregoing conclusions, the Court is guided by the allegations and arguments of the parties on the existence of an employment relation between them, which may be found in their pleadings - even at this stage. In particular, respondents squarely addressed the issue in their comment to the herein petition.
On the other hand, petitioner has consistently raised the issue and argued against it all throughout. Since the issue was raised in the petition and adequately met by the respondents in their comment thereto, the Court is not precluded from ruling thereon. There is, thus, no need to remand the case to the labor arbiter for further proceedings
Finally, this resolves respondents’ claim that the issue here involves only the propriety of the NLRC’s dismissal of petitioner’s petition for annulment of judgment; having argued against petitioner’s claim of absence of an employment relation between them - and having presented documentary evidence below to prove their case against petitioner - the issue relative to existence or non-existence of an employment relation is ripe for adjudication before this Court. (Rolando De Roca vs. Eduardo C. Dabuyan, et. al., G.R. No. 215281, Mar. 5, 2018).