This case has been cited 4 times or more.
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2014-04-07 |
REYES, J. |
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| The Court sustains the CA's award of moral and exemplary damages. Award of moral and exemplary damages for an illegally dismissed employee is proper where the employee had been harassed and arbitrarily terminated by the employer. Moral damages may be awarded to compensate one for diverse injuries such as mental anguish, besmirched reputation, wounded feelings, and social humiliation occasioned by the employer's unreasonable dismissal of the employee. The Court has consistently accorded the working class a right to recover damages for unjust dismissals tainted with bad faith; where the motive of the employer in dismissing the employee is far from noble. The award of such damages is based not on the Labor Code but on Article 220 of the Civil Code.[55] However, the Court observes that the CA decision affirming the LA's award of P500,000.00 and P250,000.00 as moral and exemplary damages, respectively, is evidently excessive because the purpose for awarding damages is not to enrich the illegally dismissed employee. Consequently, the Court hereby reduces the amount of P50,000.00 each as moral and exemplary damages.[56] | |||||
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2012-02-01 |
REYES, J. |
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| However, the backwages that should be awarded to the respondent should be modified. Employees who are illegally dismissed are entitled to full backwages, inclusive of allowances and other benefits or their monetary equivalent, computed from the time their actual compensation was withheld from them up to the time of their actual reinstatement. But if reinstatement is no longer possible, the backwages shall be computed from the time of their illegal termination up to the finality of the decision.[23] | |||||
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2011-11-28 |
PERLAS-BERNABE, J. |
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| As held in the case of Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines, Inc. vs. Del Villar,[26] the burden falls upon the company to prove that the employee's assignment from one position to another was not tantamount to constructive dismissal. In the case at bar, respondents failed to discharge said burden. In fact, respondents never even disputed that petitioner was relegated from the position of OIC to supervisor and, subsequently, to an ordinary technician. Clearly, the reduction in petitioner's responsibilities and duties, particularly from supervisor to ordinary technician, constituted a demotion in rank tantamount to constructive dismissal. | |||||
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2011-08-03 |
PEREZ, J. |
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| Considering that even labor laws discourage intrusion in the employers' judgment concerning the conduct of their business, courts often decline to interfere in their legitimate business decisions,[37] absent showing of illegality, bad faith or arbitrariness. Indeed, the right of employees to security of tenure does not give them vested rights to their positions to the extent of depriving management of its prerogative to change their assignments or to transfer them.[38] The record shows that Leynes filed the complaint for actual illegal dismissal from which the case originated on 22 February 2002 or immediately upon being placed on floating status as a consequence of NHPI's hiring of a new Property Manager for the Project. The rule is settled, however, that "off-detailing" is not equivalent to dismissal, so long as such status does not continue beyond a reasonable time and that it is only when such a "floating status" lasts for more than six months that the employee may be considered to have been constructively dismissed.[39] A complaint for illegal dismissal filed prior to the lapse of said six-month and/or the actual dismissal of the employee is generally considered as prematurely filed.[40] | |||||