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Dismissal with Just or Authorized Cause but Defective Due Process: Still a Valid Dismissal

· An employee’s removal for just or authorized cause but without complying with the proper procedure, on the other hand, does not invalidate the dismissal. (Distribution & Control Products, Inc. vs. Jeffrey Santos, G.R. No. 212616, July 10, 2017)

· The law and jurisprudence allow the award of nominal damages in favor of an employee in a case where a valid cause for dismissal exists but the employer fails to observe due process in dismissing the employee. (Libcap Marketing Corp. vs. Lanny Jean Baquial, G.R. No. 192011, June 30, 2014)

Employee’s Liability for Payment of Employment Bond

A resigning employee may be held accountable for the payment of an “employment bond” in accordance with the contractual obligations stipulated within the employment agreement. Such liability emanates from the breach of the minimum employment period clause delineated therein. (Comscenre Pidls, Inc. vs. Camille Rocio, G.R. No. 222212, January 22, 2020)

The Supreme Court decides: An employee who was hired two months after the beginning of a project cannot be considered as a project-based employee.

The employee’s signing of the employment contract more than two months after the project had commenced logically implies that he was not apprised of his status as a project-based employee when he was engaged.

 

Employers who assert that a worker is a project-based employee must be substantiate that the duration and scope of employment were explicitly determined at the time of engagement.

Forms of Constructive Dismissal: The case of Tan Brothers vs. Escudero

The fact that an employee was deprived of office space, was not given further work assignment and was not paid her salaries until she was left with no choice but stop reporting for work all combine to make out a clear case of constructive dismissal. (Tan Brothers vs. Escudero, G.R. No. 188711, July 8, 2013)

Reinstatement: Actual or in Payroll

“An employee who is unjustly dismissed from work shall be entitled to reinstatement without loss of seniority rights and other privileges and to his full backwages, inclusive of allowances, and to his other benefits or their monetary equivalent computed from the time his compensation was withheld from him up to the time of his actual reinstatement.” (Article 294, Labor Code)