St. Martin Funeral Homes vs NLRC (1998) G.R.

130866
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: NLRC decisions are appealable to the Court of Appeals.
In view of the increasing number of labor disputes that find their way to the Supreme Court, the
legislative changes introduced over the years into the provisions of P.D. 442 (Labor Code of the Philippines)
and B.P. 129 (Judiciary Reorganization Act of 1980) and the present state of the law where there is no
provision for appeals from the decision of the NLRC, the Court saw the need for reassessment of this
procedural aspect.
The Court noted that there may have been an oversight in the course of the deliberations on R.A.
7902, amending B.P. 129, or an imprecision in the terminology used therein as from the records, Congress had
intended to provide for judicial review of the adjudication of the NLRC in labor cases by the Supreme Court,
but there was an inaccuracy in the term used for the intended mode of review.
The Court is, therefore, of the considered opinion 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, however, and with which the Court is particularly concerned here is that the special
civil action for certiorari is within the concurrent original jurisdiction of this Court and the Court of Appeals;
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 the sponsorship speech on 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
Supreme Court 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 Court of Appeals in strict observance
of the doctrine on the hierarchy of courts as the appropriate forum for the relief desired.