St. Martin’s Funeral Homes v.

NLRC, 295 SCRA 494 (1998) Ivan Nabatar

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.Martin’s 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.

RULING:

The Court is 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 Rule65. 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.