Burden of proof in dismissal

Respondent Ma. Lorina Raneses filed against petitioners Dee Jay’s Inn and Café (DJIC) and/or Melinda Ferraris a complaint for illegal dismissal with money claims and damages. She averred that petitioner Ferraris terminated her employment on Feb. 5, 2005 upon learning that she filed a complaint before the SSS office.

Petitioners countered that DJIC incurred a shortage of P400 in its earnings for Feb. 4, 2005. Ferraris lost her temper and scolded respondent and a fellow employee, and required them to produce the missing P400. However, respondent and the employee merely walked out and did not report back to work anymore.

The Labor Arbiter (LA) ruled in favor of petitioners but granted respondent’s claim for 13th month pay. The National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) affirmed in toto the LA decisions.

The Court of Appeals (CA) set aside the decision and resolution of the NLRC. It ruled that the joint testimony of Mercy Bura-ay and Mea Torno in favor of respondent is tainted with bias and cannot credibly and substantially prove the fact of respondent’s alleged dismissal. However, neither should the testimony of Eva Gorospe, Ferraris’s lone witness, deserve much probative weight in proving that respondent abandoned her job. Doubt should be resolved in favor of the worker, respondent in this case.

Did the CA commit a reversible error?

Ruling: Yes.

The Court of Appeals was correct in its observation that the Labor Arbiter’s quote on the shifting of the burden of proof in dismissal cases, supposedly from De Paul, could not actually be found in said case. Yet, it does not necessarily mean that the Labor Arbiter’s ruling on the matter was fallacious or entirely baseless. xxx The Court, in Cañedo v. Kampilan Security and Detective Agency, Inc., 715 Phil. 625, 635 (2013), expressly recognized the rule that: In illegal dismissal cases, “while the employer bears the burden xx x to prove that the termination was for a valid or authorized cause, the employee must first establish by substantial evidence the fact of dismissal from service.” The burden of proving the allegations rests upon the party alleging and the proof must be clear, positive and convincing. Thus, in this case, it is incumbent upon petitioner to prove his claim of dismissal. (Citations omitted.)

The Court reiterated in Brown Madonna Press, Inc. v. Casas, G.R. No. 200898, June 15, 2015, that “in illegal dismissal cases, the employer has the burden of proving that the employee’s dismissal was legal. However, to discharge this burden, the employee must first prove, by substantial evidence, that he had been dismissed from employment.”

It bears to point out that in the case at bar, the Labor Arbiter, the NLRC, and even the Court of Appeals, all consistently found that respondent was not able to present substantial evidence of her dismissal. They all rejected the joint affidavit of Mercy and Mea, submitted by respondent, for being partial and biased. It appears that Mercy and Mea executed said affidavits to return a favor as respondent testified for them in their own cases against petitioners. The Court of Appeals only deviated from the findings of the Labor Arbiter and the NLRC by also disregarding Eva’s affidavit, submitted by petitioners to corroborate their allegations, for being insufficient to prove abandonment. The appellate court then applied the equipoise doctrine: with all things considered equal, all doubts must be resolved in favor of labor, that is, respondent.

The application by the Court of Appeals of the equipoise doc- trine and the rule that all doubts should be resolved in favor of labor was misplaced. Without the joint affidavit of Mercy and Mea, there only remained the bare allegation of respondent that she was dismissed by petitioners on Feb. 5, 2005, which hardly constitute substantial evidence of her dismissal. As both the Labor Arbiter and the NLRC held, since respondent was unable to establish with substantial evidence her dismissal from employment, the burden of proof did not shift to petitioners to prove that her dismissal was for just or authorized cause.

As pointed out by petitioners, they never raised abandonment as a defense as there was no dismissal in the first place. Petitioners did not argue that respondent abandoned her work which justified her dismissal from employment. Petitioners merely alleged the fact that respondent, after being scolded on Feb. 4, 2005, no longer returned to work beginning February 5, 2005, which was corroborated by one of petitioners’ employees, Eva, in her affidavit. (Leonardo De-Castro, J., Dee Jay’s Inn and Café, et.al. v. Ma. Lorina Rañeses, G.R. No. 191825, Oct. 5, 2016).