LA CAMPANA COFFEE FACTORY v KAISAHAN NG MANGGAGAWA G.R.

L-5677, May 25, 1953 Facts: Tan Tong since 1932 has been engaged in the buying and selling gawgaw under the trade name La Campana Gawgaw Packing. In 1950, Tan Tong and members of his family organized the family corporation. La Campana Coffee Factory with its principal office located in Gawgaw Packing. Prior to said information, Tan Tong entered into a CBA with the labor union of La Campana Gawgaw. Later on, his employees formed Kaisahan ng mga Manggagawa ng La Campana with an authorization from the DOLE to become an affiliate of the larger union. Kaisahan with 66 members presented a demand for higher wages and more privileges to La Campana Starch and Coffee Factory. The demand was not granted and the DOLE certified the issue to the CIR. La Campana filed a motion to dismiss alleging that the action was directed against two different entities with distinct personalities. This was denied, hence this petition. Issue: W/N the CIR has jurisdiction over the case. Held: YES. La Compana Gawgaw and La Campana Factory are operating under one single management or as one business though with two trade names. The coffee factory is a corporation and by legal fiction, an entity separate and apart from the persons composing it namely, Tan Tong and his family. However, the concept of separate corporate personality cannot be extended to a point beyond reason and policy when invoked in support of an end subversive of this policy and will be disregarded by the courts. A subsidiary company which is created merely as an agent for the latter may sometimes be regarded as identical with the parent corporation especially if the stockholders or officers of the two corporations are substantially the same or their systems of operation unified. The facts showed that they had one management, one payroll prepared by the same person, laborers were interchangeable, there is only one entity as shown by the signboard ad in trucks, packages and delivery forms and the same place of business. The attempt to make the two factories appear as two separate businesses when in reality they are but one, is but a device to defeat the ends of the law and should not be permitted to prevail. WHY PIERCE? So that La Campana cannot evade the jurisdiction of CIR since La Campana Gawgaw has only 14 employees and only 5 are members of Kaisahan.