FACTS:
Petitioners were employed by Riviera Home as gypsum board and cornice installers from January 1992 to February 23, 1999 when they were dismissed for abandonment of work. Petitioners filed a complaint for illegal dismissal and was decided in their favor by the Labor Arbiter. Riviera appealed to the NLRC contending just cause for the dismissal because of petitioner’s abandonment of work. NLRC ruled there was just cause and petitioners were not entitled to backwages and separation pay. The CA in turn ruled that the dismissal was not illegal because they have abandoned their work but ordered the payment of money claims.
ISSUE:
Whether or not petitioners were illegally dismissed.
RULING:
To dismiss an employee, the law required not only the existence of a just and valid cause but also enjoins the employer to give the employee the right to be heard and to defend himself. Abandonment is the deliberate and unjustified refusal of an employee to resume his employment. For a valid finding or abandonment, two factors are considered: failure to report for work without a valid reason; and, a clear intention to sever employer-employee relationship with the second as the more determinative factor which is manifested by overt acts from which it may be deduced that the employees has no more intention to work.
Where the employer had a valid reason to dismiss an employee but did not follow the due process requirement, the dismissal may be upheld but the employer will be penalized to pay an indemnity to the employee. This became known as the Wenphil Doctrine of the Belated Due process Rule.
Art. 279 means that the termination is illegal if it is not for any of the justifiable or authorized by law. Where the dismissal is for a just cause, the lack of statutory due process should not nullify the dismissal but the employer should indemnify the employee for the violation of his statutory rights. The indemnity should be stiffer to discourage the abhorrent practice of “dismiss now, pay later” which we sought to deter in Serrano ruling. The violation of employees’ rights warrants the payment of nominal damages.
