GR 174084; (August, 2010) (Digest)
G.R. No. 174084 ; August 25, 2010
SPIC N’ SPAN SERVICES CORPORATION, Petitioner, vs. GLORIA PAJE, LOLITA GOMEZ, MIRIAM CATACUTAN, ESTRELLA ZAPATA, GLORIA SUMANG, JULIET DINGAL, MYRA AMANTE, and FE S. BERNANDO, Respondents.
FACTS
Respondents worked as Deli/Promo Girls for Swift Foods, Inc. products in supermarkets. Their services were supplied by petitioner Spic N’ Span Services Corporation (SNS), a manpower agency with a service contract with Swift. They were all dismissed on February 28, 1998. They filed complaints for illegal dismissal against both SNS and Swift. Before the Labor Arbiter, the respondents’ position papers were not signed by them but by a non-lawyer representative, Florencio P. Peralta, who also failed to show proof of authority. The Labor Arbiter dismissed the respondents’ claims without prejudice due to this lack of verification. The NLRC, on appeal, affirmed the dismissal of the respondents’ claims, focusing on the procedural defect of the unverified position papers.
ISSUE
The core issues were: (1) whether the failure of the respondents to personally sign the verification of their position paper is a fatal defect warranting dismissal of their complaint; and (2) whether the respondents were illegally dismissed, justifying the remand for computation of monetary awards.
RULING
The Supreme Court denied SNS’s petition and affirmed the Court of Appeals. On the procedural issue, the Court ruled that the lack of verification or a signature on a pleading is merely a formal, not a jurisdictional, defect. Citing Torres v. Specialized Packaging Development Corporation, the Court held that the verification requirement’s primary purpose is to ensure allegations are made in good faith and are true. The Labor Code mandates that proceedings before labor tribunals should not be bound by technical rules of procedure. The respondents’ representation by a non-lawyer, while irregular, did not justify the outright dismissal of their substantive claims, especially considering the constitutional bias for labor and the duty of labor arbiters to ascertain facts speedily without regard to technicalities.
On the substantive issue of illegal dismissal, the Court upheld the finding that the respondents were indeed illegally dismissed. The records established that their employment was terminated without just or authorized cause and without the requisite procedural due process. The termination occurred on the same day they received their notices. Consequently, the remand to the Labor Arbiter for the computation of backwages, separation pay, and service incentive leave pay was proper. The Court also awarded nominal damages to each respondent for the violation of their procedural due process rights. The labor-only contracting relationship between SNS and Swift made them jointly and severally liable for the awards.