Contesting quitclaim

Dear Atty. Kathy,

I was one of the managerial employees dismissed by our Company, on the ground of redundancy. During the claiming of the final pay, including the redundancy separation pay (which I have to admit is quite generous at 150 percent of salary for every year of service).

I was forced to sign the quitclaim before the notary public, because I needed the money and could not yet find another job at that time. When the notary public asked if I thoroughly read and understood the quitclaim I was executing, as mentioned in the quitclaim itself, I had to say yes, or else I would not get my final pay.

Unfortunately, I have already spent all of the final pay and still do not have a job. Do I have a ground to contest that the quitclaim is not valid and not effective, since I was only forced to sign it?

Lei

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Dear Lei,

Based on your narration, it appears that the requisites for the validity of the quitclaim you executed were satisfied.

You acknowledged in the quitclaim and before the notary public that you thoroughly read and understood the quitclaim you were executing. Being a managerial employee, it would be implausible to hold that you could be easily duped into simply signing away your rights.

Further, you admitted that the separation pay is generous, at 150 percent of your salary for every year of service. That you had to sign the quitclaim in order to get your final pay, does not prove that its execution was coerced.

It is justifiable that the Company took steps to protect its interest and obtain release from all obligations once it paid your final pay/separation pay, as in your case.

Also, that you had to sign the quitclaim because you were jobless and needed the money does not necessarily mean that you were forced to sign the same.

Dire necessity should not necessarily be an acceptable ground for annulling the quitclaim, especially because it was not shown that you had been forced to execute it; nor was it proven that the consideration for the quitclaim was unconscionably low, and that you had been tricked into accepting the consideration.

The quitclaim will be ineffective in barring recovery of the full measure of your rights as an employee only when the transaction is shown to be questionable and the consideration is scandalously low and inequitable.

However, this does not appear to be the case for you, since based on your narration, the quitclaim was freely and voluntarily signed. As a result, the Company was released and absolved from any further liability in your favor, and you may no longer have any ground to contest the quitclaim.

(Radio Mindanao Network, Inc. versus Michael Maximo R. Amurao III, G.R. 167225, 22 October 2014.)

Atty. Kathy Larios