GR 73352; (December, 1994) (Digest)
G.R. No. 73352 , December 6, 1994
TANDUAY DISTILLERY LABOR UNION, ET AL., petitioners, vs. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION AND TANDUAY DISTILLERY, INC., respondents.
FACTS
Individual petitioners were employees of Tanduay Distillery, Inc. On April 21, 1981, the company placed them under preventive suspension and filed an application for clearance to terminate their employment. The grounds cited were various infractions, including eating and drinking on the line, leaving their posts, destruction of property, and assaulting persons of authority. The incident stemmed from a workplace altercation that began when a supervisor confiscated food from some petitioners during their shift, which later escalated into a physical confrontation outside the company premises after their shift ended.
The Labor Arbiter dismissed the company’s application for clearance and ordered the reinstatement of petitioners with backwages, but conditioned such reinstatement on their acquittal from related criminal charges for slight physical injuries. Both parties appealed to the NLRC. The NLRC reversed the Labor Arbiter’s decision and upheld the dismissals, finding the petitioners guilty of serious misconduct. The criminal cases against the petitioners were subsequently dismissed by the Regional Trial Court, which acquitted them.
ISSUE
Whether the National Labor Relations Commission committed grave abuse of discretion in affirming the dismissal of the individual petitioners for serious misconduct.
RULING
Yes. The Supreme Court granted the petition, reversed the NLRC decision, and reinstated the Labor Arbiter’s ruling with modification. The Court emphasized that in termination cases, the burden of proof rests upon the employer to establish just cause for dismissal. The employer’s evidence failed to meet this burden convincingly. The altercation was not entirely of the petitioners’ making; it was triggered by the supervisor’s aggressive act of confiscating and throwing away their food, and the subsequent fight involved mutual aggression from both the petitioners and company supervisors.
The Court found that the penalty of dismissal was too severe. The misconduct, arising from a single heated incident, did not constitute the serious and willful disobedience or gross misconduct required for a valid dismissal under the Labor Code. Considering the petitioners had already been out of work for several years, the Court deemed this period sufficient punishment. The conditional reinstatement order was modified. Petitioners were ordered reinstated without loss of seniority rights and awarded back salaries equivalent to three years without qualification. Should reinstatement be no longer feasible, the company must pay separation pay in addition to the three-year back wages.