St. Martin Funeral Home vs.

NLRC

G.R. No. 130866

September 16, 1998

REGALADO, J.:

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.