Dear Atty. Kathy,

My father has been a company driver with Company X for five years. When the transportation industry opened up again during the pandemic, Company X hired more drivers. My father did not get along with one of the new drivers and he had an argument with him that ended in name-calling and almost in fisticuffs as they were immediately stopped by their co-workers. My father and the new driver were both dismissed because Company X said they violated the employee handbook rule against fighting with another employee inside the work premises which they said is serious misconduct. My father has a clean record with Company X and was even awarded driver of the year in 2019. Wasn't the penalty of dismissal too harsh?

Ivy

***

Dear Ivy,

In labor cases, misconduct, as a ground for dismissal under Article 297 of the Labor Code, must be serious or of such grave and aggravated character and not merely trivial or unimportant. It must relate to the performance of the employee's duties, showing that the employee has become unfit to continue working for the company, and it must have been performed with wrongful intent.

Based on your narration, it does not appear that any of the above requisites for serious misconduct is present. There was only name-calling and the fisticuffs did not happen since your father and the other employee were stopped by their co-workers. It does not appear that there was a work stoppage nor that there was a threat to the safety of the other employees. If the company did not show how your father's misconduct adversely affected its business or how your father has become unfit to continue working for the company, there is no just cause for the termination of your father's employment with the company. The dismissal as a penalty is too harsh and not commensurate with the act committed.

(G&S Transport Corporation vs Reynaldo A. Medina, G.R. 243768, 5 September 2022.)

Atty. Kathy Larios