De Leon v. NLRC, G.R. No.
70705,
August 21, 1989
FACTS: Petitioner De Leon was employed by respondent company La Tondeña as maintenance
man whose work consisted mainly of painting company building and equipment, and other odd
jobs relating to maintenance. After having worked for respondent for more than a year, petitioner
requested that he be included in the payroll of regular employees, to which the former responded
by dismissing petitioner from his employment. Petitioner having been refused reinstatement filed a
complaint before the Labor Arbiter. Petitioner asserts that he is a regular employee performing
similar functions as of a regular maintenance and was rehired by respondent company’s labor
agency to perform the same tasks. Respondent company meanwhile claims petitioner was a
casual worker hired only to paint a certain building in the premises and that his work as painter
terminated upon completion of the job. The Labor Arbiter ruled in favor of petitioner but was
reversed on appeal by the NLRC tribunal.
Labor Arbiter Bienvenido S. Hernandez rendered a decision finding the complaint meritorious and
the dismissal illegal; and ordering the respondent company to reinstate petitioner with full back
wages and other benefits. Labor Arbiter Hernandez ruled that petitioner was not a mere casual
employee as asserted by private respondent but a regular employee. He concluded that the
dismissal of petitioner from the service was prompted by his request to be included in the list of
regular employees and to be paid through the payroll and is, therefore, an attempt to circumvent
the legal obligations of an employer towards a regular employee.
However, the above decision of the Labor Arbiter was reversed by the First Division of the National
Labor Relations Commission by virtue of the votes of two members which constituted a majority.
Commissioner Geronimo Q. Quadra dissented, voting "for the affirmation of the well-reasoned
decision of the Labor Arbiter below." The motion for reconsideration was denied.
The Solicitor General recommends that the petition be given due course in view of the evidence on
record supporting petitioner's contention that his work was regular in nature. In his view, the dismissal
of petitioner after he demanded to be regularized was to circumvent the law on regular employment.
He further recommends that the questioned decision and resolution of respondent Commission be
annulled and the Order of the Labor Arbiter directing the reinstatement of petitioner with payment of
back wages and other benefits be upheld.
Issue: Whether or not De Leon is a regular employee, hence, his dismissal illegal.
.
Ruling: Yes, the Supreme Court stands with the decision of the Solicitor General in invalidating the
decision of the NLRC. The law on the matter is Article 281 of the Labor Code which defines regular
and casual employment as follows: Art. 281. Regular and casual employment. The provisions of a
written agreement to the contrary notwithstanding and regardless of the oral agreements of the
parties, an employment shall be deemed to be regular where the employee has been engaged to
perform activities which are usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the
employer, except where the employment has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking the
completion or termination of which has been determined at the time of the engagement of the
employee or where the work or services to be performed is seasonal in nature and the employment is
for the duration of the season. An employment shall be deemed to be casual if it is not covered by the
preceding paragraph: Provided, That any employee who has rendered at least one year of service,
whether such service is continuous or broken, shall be considered a regular employee with respect to
the activity in which he is employed and his employment shall continue while such actually exists.
In the case at bar, the records reveal that the tasks assigned to him included not only painting
of company buildings, equipment and tools but also cleaning and oiling machines, even operating a
drilling machine, and other odd jobs assigned to him when he had no painting job. A regular
employee of respondent company, Emiliano Tanque Jr., attested in his affidavit that petitioner worked
with him as a maintenance man when there was no painting job. Furthermore, the petitioner
performed his work of painting and maintenance activities which lasted for more than one year, until
he demanded to be regularized and was subsequently dismissed. Certainly, by this fact alone he is
entitled by law to be considered a regular employee. And considering further those weeks after his
dismissal, petitioner was rehired by the company through a labor agency and was returned to his post
in the Maintenance Section and made to perform the same activities that he used to do, it cannot be
denied that as activities as a regular painter and maintenance man still exist. Hence, he was a regular
employee and his dismissal was illegal.
