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The Issue
The sole issue for this Court’s resolution is whether the respondents’ infraction – engaging in sexual intercourse inside company premises during work hours – amounts to serious misconduct within the terms of Article 282 (now Article 296) of the Labor Code justifying their dismissal.
The Court’s Ruling
We GRANT the petition.
We find that the CA reversibly erred when it nullified the NLRC’s decision for grave abuse of discretion the NLRC’s decision.
Preliminary considerations: tenurial security vis-à-vis management prerogative
The law and jurisprudence guaranteeto every employee security of tenure. This textual and the ensuing jurisprudential commitment to the cause and welfare of the working class proceed from the social justice principles of the Constitution that the Court zealously implements out of its concern for those with less in life. Thus, the Court will not hesitate to strike down as invalid any employer act that attempts to undermine workers’ tenurial security. All these the State undertakes under Article 279 (now Article 293)22 of the Labor Code which bar an employer from terminating the services of an employee, except for just or authorized cause and upon observance of due process.
In protecting the rights of the workers, the law, however, does not authorize the oppression or self-destruction of the employer.23 The constitutional commitment to the policy of social justice cannot be understood to mean that every labor dispute shall automatically be decided in favor of labor.24 The constitutional and legal protection equally recognize the employer’s right and prerogative to manage its operation according to reasonable standards and norms of fair play.
Accordingly, except as limited by special law, an employer is free to regulate, according to his own judgment and discretion, all aspects of employment, including hiring, work assignments, working methods, time, place and manner of work, tools to beused, processes to be followed, supervision of workers, working regulations, transfer of employees, worker supervision, layoff of workers and the discipline, dismissal and recall of workers.25 As a general proposition, an employer has free reign over every aspect of its business, including the dismissal of his employees as long as the exercise of its management prerogativeis done reasonably, in good faith, and in a manner not otherwise intended to defeat or circumvent the rights of workers.
In these lights, the Court’s task inthe present petition is to balance the conflicting rights of the respondents to security of tenure, on one hand, and of Imasen to dismiss erring employees pursuant to the legitimate exercise of its management prerogative, on the other.
Management’s right to dismiss an employee; serious misconduct as just cause for the dismissal
The just causes for dismissing an employee are provided under Article 28226 (now Article 296)27 of the Labor Code. Under Article 282(a), serious misconduct by the employee justifies the employer in terminating his or her employment.
Misconduct is defined as an improper or wrong conduct. It is a transgression of some established and definite rule of action, a forbidden act, a dereliction of duty, willful in character, and implies wrongful intent and not mere error in judgment.28 To constitute a valid cause for the dismissal within the text and meaning of Article 282 of the Labor Code, the employee’s misconduct must be serious, i.e., of such grave and aggravated character and not merely trivial or unimportant.29
Additionally, the misconduct must be related to the performance of the employee’s duties showing him tobe unfit to continue working for the employer.30 Further, and equally important and required, the act or conduct must have been performed with wrongful intent.31
To summarize, for misconduct or improper behavior to be a just cause for dismissal, the following elements must concur: (a) the misconduct must be serious; (b) it must relate to the performance of the employee’s duties showing that the employee has become unfit to continue working for the employer;32 and (c) it must have been performed with wrongful intent.
The respondents’ infraction amounts to serious misconduct within the terms of Article 282 (now Article296) of the Labor Code justifying their dismissal
Dismissal situations (on the ground of serious misconduct) involving sexual acts, particularly sexual intercourse committed by employees inside company premises and during workhours, are not usual violations33 and are not found in abundance under jurisprudence. Thus, in resolving the present petition, we are largely guided by the principles we discussed above, as applied to the totality of the circumstances that surrounded the petitioners’ dismissal.
In other words, we view the petitioners’ act from the prism of the elements that must concur for an act to constitute serious misconduct, analyzed and understood within the context of the overall circumstances of the case. In taking this approach, weare guided, too, by the jurisdictional limitations that a Rule 45 review of the CA’s Rule 65 decision in labor cases imposes on our discretion.34
In addressing the situation that we are faced with in this petition, we determine whether Imasen validly exercised its prerogative as employer to dismiss the respondents-employees who, within company premises and during work hours, engaged in sexual intercourse. As framed within our limited Rule 45 jurisdiction, the question that we ask is: whether the NLRC committed grave abuse of discretion in finding that the respondents’ act amounted to what Article 282 of the Labor Code textually considers as serious misconduct to warrant their dismissal.
After due consideration, we find the NLRC legally correct and well within its jurisdiction when it affirmed the validity of the respondents’ dismissal on the ground of serious misconduct.
Sexual acts and intimacies between two consenting adults belong, as a principled ideal, to the realm of purely private relations.1âwphi1 Whether aroused by lust or inflamed by sincere affection, sexual acts should be carried out at such place, time and circumstance that, by the generally accepted norms of conduct, will not offend public decency nor disturb the generally held or accepted social morals. Under these parameters, sexual acts between two consenting adults do not have a place in the work environment.
Indisputably, the respondents engaged in sexual intercourse inside company premisesand during work hours. These circumstances, by themselves, are already punishablemisconduct. Added to these considerations, however, is the implication that the respondents did not only disregard company rules but flaunted their disregard in a manner that could reflect adversely on the status of ethics and morality in the company.
Additionally, the respondents engaged in sexual intercourse in an area where co-employees or other company personnel have ready and available access. The respondents likewise committed their act at a time when the employees were expected to be and had, in fact, been at their respective posts, and when they themselves were supposed to be, as all other employees had in fact been, working.
Under these factual premises and inthe context of legal parameters we discussed, we cannot help but consider the respondents’ misconduct to be of grave and aggravated character so that the company was justified in imposing the highest penalty available ― dismissal. Their infraction transgressed the bounds of sociallyand morally accepted human public behavior, and at the same time showedbrazen disregard for the respect that their employer expected of them as employees. By their misconduct, the respondents, in effect, issued an open invitation for othersto commit the same infraction, with like disregard for their employer’s rules, for the respect owed to their employer, and for their co-employees’ sensitivities. Taken together, these considerations reveal a depraved disposition that the Court cannot but consider as a valid cause for dismissal. In ruling as we do now, we considered the balancing between the respondents’ tenurial rights and the petitioner’s interests – the need to defend their management prerogative and to maintain as well a high standard of ethics and morality in the workplace. Unfortunately for the respondents, in this balancing under the circumstances ofthe case, we have to rule against their tenurial rights in favor of the employer’s management rights.
All told, the respondents’ misconduct,under the circumstances of this case, fell within the terms of Article 282 (now Article 296) of the Labor Code. Consequently, we reverse the CA’s decision for its failure to recognize that no grave abuse of discretion attended the NLRC’s decision to support the respondents’ dismissal for serious misconduct.
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