The Supreme Court ruled that the petitioners were illegally dismissed and should be reinstated. It found that:
1) The petitioners were continuously rehired by the respondent for over 4 years to perform the same tasks essential to its business, which constituted regularization under the law.
2) The successive project employment contracts were a deliberate attempt to prevent regularization and circumvent the law.
3) Even if the petitioners were considered project employees, they satisfied the conditions to be deemed regular employees.
4) The respondent failed to prove the petitioners' work was for specific projects that would be completed, as required for a valid project employment.
The Supreme Court ruled that the petitioners were illegally dismissed and should be reinstated. It found that:
1) The petitioners were continuously rehired by the respondent for over 4 years to perform the same tasks essential to its business, which constituted regularization under the law.
2) The successive project employment contracts were a deliberate attempt to prevent regularization and circumvent the law.
3) Even if the petitioners were considered project employees, they satisfied the conditions to be deemed regular employees.
4) The respondent failed to prove the petitioners' work was for specific projects that would be completed, as required for a valid project employment.
Original Description:
Good
Original Title
Macarthur Malicdem and Herminigildo Flores v Marulas Industrial Corp_Jasper
The Supreme Court ruled that the petitioners were illegally dismissed and should be reinstated. It found that:
1) The petitioners were continuously rehired by the respondent for over 4 years to perform the same tasks essential to its business, which constituted regularization under the law.
2) The successive project employment contracts were a deliberate attempt to prevent regularization and circumvent the law.
3) Even if the petitioners were considered project employees, they satisfied the conditions to be deemed regular employees.
4) The respondent failed to prove the petitioners' work was for specific projects that would be completed, as required for a valid project employment.
The Supreme Court ruled that the petitioners were illegally dismissed and should be reinstated. It found that:
1) The petitioners were continuously rehired by the respondent for over 4 years to perform the same tasks essential to its business, which constituted regularization under the law.
2) The successive project employment contracts were a deliberate attempt to prevent regularization and circumvent the law.
3) Even if the petitioners were considered project employees, they satisfied the conditions to be deemed regular employees.
4) The respondent failed to prove the petitioners' work was for specific projects that would be completed, as required for a valid project employment.
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
Download as docx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1of 2
Macarthur Malicdem and Herminigildo Flores v Marulas 1.
WON CA erred in not finding any grave abuse of
Industrial Corp| G.R. No. 204406 February 26, 2014| discretion amounting to lack or excess of Mendoza, J. | | by Jasper jurisdiction on the part of the NLRC a. Yes. FACTS: b. The "Project Employment Agreement," ● Respondents were engaged in the business of reveals that there was a stipulated manufacturing sacks intended for local and export probationary period of 6 months from its markets. commencement. It was provided therein ● Malicdem and Flores were first hired by Marulas as that in the event that they would be able extruder operators in 2006. They were responsible to comply with the company's standards for the bagging of filament yarn, the quality of pp and criteria within such period, they shall yarn package and the cleanliness of the work place be reclassified as project employees with area. Their employment contracts were for a period respect to the remaining period of the of 1 year. Every year thereafter, they would sign a effectivity of the contract. Resignation/Quitclaim in favor of Marulas a day c. Under Art 281 LC, however, "an employee after their contracts ended, and then sign another who is allowed to work after a contract for 1 year. probationary period shall be considered a ● On December 16, 2010, Flores was told not to regular employee." When an employer report for work anymore after being asked to sign a renews a contract of employment after paper by Marulas' HR Head to the effect that he the lapse of the six-month probationary acknowledged the completion of his contractual period, the employee thereby becomes a status. On February 1, 2011, Malicdem was also regular employee. terminated after signing a similar document. Thus, d. Maraguinot, Jr. v. NLRC: a project or work both claimed to have been illegally dismissed. pool employee, who has been: (1) ● Marulas countered that their contracts showed that continuously, as opposed to they were fixed-term employees for a specific intermittently, rehired by the same undertaking which was to work on a particular employer for the same tasks or nature of order of a customer for a specific period. Their tasks; and (2) those tasks are vital, severance from employment was due to the necessary and indispensable to the usual expiration of their contracts. business or trade of the employer, must be ● On February 7, 2011, Malicdem and Flores lodged a deemed a regular employee. complaint against Marulas and Mancilla for illegal e. There was clearly a deliberate intent to dismissal. prevent the regularization of the ● LA: Malicdem and Flores were not terminated and petitioners. There was no actual project. that their employment naturally ceased when their As there was no specific project or contracts expired. The LA, however, ordered undertaking to speak of, the respondents Marulas to pay Malicdem and Flores their cannot invoke the exception in Article 280 respective wage differentials (20k for Malicdem, of the Labor Code. This is a clear attempt 18k for Flores). to frustrate the regularization of the ● NLRC: partially granted petitioners’ appeal with the petitioners and to circumvent the law. award of payment of 13th month pay, SIL and f. Even assuming arguendo that they were holiday pay for three (3) years. project employees, the petitioners could ● CA: Denied the petition. “The repeated and only be considered as regular employees successive rehiring of project employees do not as the two factors enumerated in qualify them as regular employees, as length of Maraguinot, Jr., are present in this case. service is not the controlling determinant of the They were continuously rehired by the employment tenure of a project employee, but same employer for the same position as whether the employment has been fixed for a extruder operators. Their work was vital, specific project or undertaking, its completion has necessary and indispensable to the usual been determined at the time of the engagement of business or trade of the employer. the employee." William Uy Construction Corp. v. g. The project employment contracts that Trinidad the petitioners were made to sign every ● Petitioners filed a petition for review on certiorari year since the start of their employment under Rule 45 to the SC. were only a stratagy to violate their ● Petitioners: They claim that their continuous security of tenure in the company. rehiring paved the way for their regularization and, h. The respondents' invocation of William Uy for said reason, they could not be terminated from Construction Corp. v. Trinidad is misplaced their jobs without just cause. because it is applicable only in cases ● Respondents: They posit that the petitioners were involving the tenure of project employees contractual employees and their rehiring did not in the construction industry. amount to regularization. i. It is widely known that in the construction ISSUES/RATIO: industry, a project employee's work depends on the availability of projects, necessarily the duration of his employment. It is not permanent but coterminous with the work to which he is assigned. j. It would be extremely burdensome for the employer, who depends on the availability of projects, to carry him as a permanent employee Ratio: once the project is completed it would be unjust to require the employer to maintain these employees in their payroll. To do so would make the employee a privileged retainer who collects payment from his employer for work not done. This is extremely unfair to the employers and amounts to labor coddling at the expense of management. RULING: WHEREFORE, the petition is GRANTED. Accordingly, respondent Marulas Industrial Corporation is hereby ordered to reinstate petitioners Macarthur Malicdem and Hermenigildo Flores to their former positions without loss of seniority rights and other privileges and to pay their full backwages, inclusive of allowances and their other benefits or their monetary equivalent computed from the time their compensations were withheld from them up to the time of their actual reinstatement plus the wage differentials stated in the July 13, 2011 decision of the Labor Arbiter, as modified by the December 19, 2011 NLRC decision.