7/7/2021
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Whether the [CA] erred in awarding attorney's fees in favor of the private
respondent despite justified refusal to pay full and permanent disability
benefits based on the fact that private respondent finished his contract.[22]
The Court's Ruling
The petition is meritorious.
Petitioners insist that respondent is not entitled to permanent disability compensation
considering that his ailments are not work-related and they did not occur during the
term of his employment They expound that respondent was not repatriated due to a
medical condition but because of a finished contract; in fact, after repatriation, he
tendered his intent to board another vessel on February 28 or in March of 2009.
Petitioners likewise contend that respondent's failure to report for a post-employment
medical examination to a company-designated doctor immediately after repatriation is
fatal to his claim for disability compensation. Finally, petitioners assert that respondent
failed to prove that his ailments had rendered him permanently unfit for sea duty.
Respondent, on the other hand, alleges that his employment on board petitioners'
vessel as a Cook exposed him to several factors which caused and aggravated his
condition (kidney stones and urethritis); he reported to petitioner upon repatriation for
a medical examination and treatment but the company-designated physician refused to
attend to his aid for lack of a master's medical pass; his failure to present a master's
medical pass upon repatriation was due to the ship captain's non-issuance thereof
Finally, respondent claims that due to his illnesses, one of his kidneys was removed
resulting in his permanent unfitness for sea duty.
This Court rules in favor of petitioner.
At the outset, the issues the petitioners raised unavoidably assail common factual
findings of the labor arbiter, the NLRC, and the CA. As a rule, only questions of law may
be raised in a Rule 45 petition.[23] In the case of Punong Bayan and Araullo (P&A) v.
Lepon,[24] the Court had the opportunity to explain the parameters of a Rule 45 appeal
from the CA's Rule 65 decision on a labor case, viz.:
In a Rule 45 review, we consider the correctness of the assailed CA decision,
in contrast with the review for jurisdictional error that we undertake under
Rule 65. Furthermore, Rule 45 limits us to the review of questions of law
raised against the assailed CA decision. In ruling for legal correctness, we
have to view the CA decision in the same context that the petition for
certiorari it ruled upon was presented to it; we have to examine the CA
decision from the prism of whether it correctly determined the
presence or absence of grave abuse of discretion in the NLRC
decision before it, not on the basis of whether the NLRC decision on
the merits of the case was correct. In other words, we have to be keenly
aware that the CA undertook a Rule 65 review, not a review on appeal, of
the NLRC decision challenged before it.
https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/66977
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