Pelaez v. Luzon Lumber Company

CONCEPCION, J.:

This is an ordinary civil action for the recovery of the aggregate sum of P36,667.81, consisting of the following items: 1) For overtime pay ............................................................. P9,578.37 2) For sick and vacation leave of absence with pay ..... 756.00 3) For medical treatment ..................................................

3,000.00 4) For actual or compensatory damages ...................... 20,000.00 5) For attorney's fee ............................................................ 3,333.44 by way of compensation allegedly due plaintiff Francisco Pelaez - who contracted pulmona tuberculosis and later died - first as a laborer, and, then, as watchman and driver of defendant Luzon Lumber Company, from December 7, 1946 to May 7, 1952.

The complaint was filed with the Court of First Instance of Manila on August 15, 1952. Defendant answered denying any and all liability in favor of the plaintiff, upon the ground that the former," had already paid the latter everything due to him, that he had never rendered any overtime services, and that he had voluntarily quit his job, and assailing the jurisdiction of the Court of First Instance of Manila to hear find decide the case, the claim involved therein by allegedly within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Workmen's Compensation Commission.

After appropriate proceedings, said court rendered a decision finding that it had no jurisdiction to entertain plaintiff's claim for sick and vacation leave of absence, medical aid and actual and compensatory damages, and dismissing his claim for overtime pay, upon the ground of insufficiency of the evidence, without special pronouncement as to costs. Plaintiff appealed this decision to the Court of Appeals, which forwarded the records to this Court, the jurisdiction of the court a quo being involved in the appeal. With respect to this decision, appellant contends that, despite section 46 of Act No. 3428, as amended, by Republic Act No. 772, reading: The Workmen's Compensation Commissioner shall have exclusive jurisdiction to hear and decide claims for compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act, subject to appeal to the Supreme Court, in the same manner and in the same period as provided by law and by rules of court for appeal from the Court of Industrial relations to the Supreme Court.

(Emphasis ours.) the court a quo had jurisdiction to hear and decide his claim for sick and vacation leave of absence, medical aid and actual and compensatory damages, his cause of action in relation thereto having accrued before June 20, 1952, when said Republic Act No. 772 was approved and became effective. A similar pretense was rejected by this Court in Castro vs. Sagales, (94 Phil., 208), and we do not find sufficient reasons to depart from the view adopted in our decision therein, from which we quote: Republic Act No. 772 effective. June 20, 1952 conferred upon the Workmen's Compensation Commission "exclusive jurisdiction"

to hear and decide claims for compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act, subject to appeal to this Supreme Court. Before the passage of the said Act demands for compensation had to be submitted to the regular courts. It is true that the right arises from the moment of the accident, but such right must be declared or confirmed by the government agency empowered by the law to make the declaration.

If at the time the petition for such declaration is addressed to the court, latter has no longer authority to do so, obviously it has no power to entertain the petition. Republic Act No.

772 is very clear that and after June 20, 1952 all claims for compensation shall be decided exclusively by the Workmen's Compensation Commissioner, subject to appeal to the Supreme Court. This claim having been formulated for the first time in August, 1952 in the Court of First Instance of Bulacan, the latter had no jurisdiction, at that time, to act upon it. No constitutional objection may be interposed to the application of the law conferring jurisdiction upon the commission, because the statute does not thereby operate retroactively; it is made to operate upons claim formulated after the law's approval.

. . .

"A revested rights acquired under existing law, or creates a new obligation and imposes a new duty, or attaches a new disability, in respect of transaction or consideration already past. Hence, remedial statutes, or estatutes relating to remedies or modes of procedure, which do not create new or take away vested rights but only operate in furtherance of the remedy or confirmation of rights already existing, do not come within the legal conception of a retrospective law, or the general rule against the retrospective operation of statutes." (50 Am.

Jur., p. 505).