Cruz, Sarah Jean J

Set 1 / Case No 127

GR No 130866
September 16, 1998
St Martin Funeral Home vs. National Labor Relations Commission and Bienvenido
Aricayos
FACTS: Private respondent alleges that he started working as Operations Manager of
petitioner St. Martin Funeral Home on February 6, 1995. However, there was no
contract of employment executed between him and petitioner nor was his name
included in the semi-monthly payroll. On January 22, 1996, he was dismissed from his
employment for allegedly misappropriating P38,000.00. Petitioner on the other hand
claims that private respondent was not its employee but only the uncle of Amelita
Malabed, the owner of petitioner St Martins Funeral Home and in January 1996, the
mother of Amelita passed away, so the latter took over the management of the
business. Amelita made some changes in the business operation and private
respondent and his wife were no longer allowed to participate in the management
thereof. As a consequence, the latter filed a complaint charging that petitioner had
illegally terminated his employment. The labor arbiter rendered a decision in favor of
petitioner declaring that no employer-employee relationship existed between the parties
and therefore his office had no jurisdiction over the case.
ISSUE: WON the decision of the NLRC are appealable to the Court of Appeals.
HELD: The Court stated that ever since appeals from the NLRC to the SC were
eliminated, the legislative intendment was that the special civil action for certiorari was
and still is the proper vehicle for judicial review of decisions of the NLRC. The use of the
word appeal in relation thereto and in the instances we have noted could have been a
lapsus plumae because appeals by certiorari and the original action for certiorari are
both modes of judicial review addressed to the appellate courts. The important
distinction between them is that the special civil action for certiorari is within the
concurrent original jurisdiction of this Court and the CA; whereas to indulge in the
assumption that appeals by certiorari to the SC are allowed would not subserve, but
would subvert, the intention of the Congress as expressed in Senate Bill No. 1495.
Therefore, all references in the amended Section 9 of B.P No. 129 to supposed appeals
from the NLRC to the SC are interpreted and hereby declared to mean and refer to
petitions for certiorari under Rule 65. Consequently, all such petitions should henceforth
be initially filed in the CA in strict observance of the doctrine on the hierarchy of courts
as the appropriate forum for the relief desired.