G.R. No. L-42654 February 28, 1978
TERESITA VDA. DE TORRES, petitioner, vs. WARNER BARNES & CO., INC., and WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION COMMISSION, respondents.

FACTS

The petitioner, Teresita Vda. de Torres, sought death benefits under the Workmen’s Compensation Act following the death of her husband, Francisco Torres, on October 9, 1974, due to severe anemia. Francisco had been employed as a Bad Order Checker by respondent Warner Barnes & Co., Inc. since 1958. The claim, filed on March 26, 1975, cited a 1958 work accident where he fell from a vessel, rendering him unconscious for three days, and alleged his health deteriorated thereafter. The respondent company controverted the claim, arguing no employer-employee relationship and that the death was not work-connected.
The Workmen’s Compensation Commission dismissed the claim, ruling it had prescribed. The Commission erroneously computed the prescriptive period from the 1958 accident, concluding the death claim filed in 1975 was beyond the ten-year period. It further applied Section 8 of the Act, requiring death to occur within two years of injury, noting Torres died over 16 years after the 1958 incident, thus barring compensation.

ISSUE

Whether the claim for death compensation filed by the widow had prescribed and was thus correctly dismissed by the respondent Commission.

RULING

The Supreme Court reversed the Commission’s decision and awarded compensation. The legal logic is anchored on the correct application of the prescriptive period and the statutory presumption of compensability. The Commission committed a grave error in computing prescription from the 1958 accident. The prescriptive period for filing a death claim runs from the time of death, not from the date of a prior injury. Since Torres died in October 1974 and the claim was filed in March 1975, it was well within the statutory period.
On compensability, the Court applied Section 44(1) of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, which establishes a presumption that a claim is compensable if the illness or injury arose in the course of employment. The employer bears the burden to rebut this presumption with substantial evidence. The respondent company failed to discharge this burden. Its defenses of no employer-employee relationship and absence of work-connection were unsubstantiated by evidence presented before the Commission. The Commission’s own factual finding, which is binding, established Torres was an employee. Given the employment relationship, the severe anemia, which supervened during employment, is presumed compensable.
Furthermore, the respondent company forfeited its right to raise non-jurisdictional defenses, including prescription, by failing to seasonably controvert the claim. The notice of controversion was filed only in May 1975, after the claim was filed, which constitutes a waiver of such defenses under the Act. Consequently, the claim is compensable, and the award for death benefits is justified.