G.R. No. 142293, 27 February 2003

FACTS:

Private respondent Jaime Sahot started working as a truck helper for petitioners’ family-owned trucking business for 36 years, private respondent continuously served the trucking business of petitioners. In April 1994, Sahot was already 59 years old. He had been incurring absences as he was suffering from various ailments which greatly affected the performance of his task as a driver. He inquired about his medical and retirement benefits with the Social Security System (SSS) on April 25, 1994, but discovered that his premium payments had not been remitted by his employer.

Sahot had filed a week-long leave sometime in May 1994. At the end of his week-long absence, Sahot applied for extension of his leave for the whole month of June, 1994. It was at this time when petitioners allegedly threatened to terminate his employment should he refuse to go back to work.

At this point, Sahot found himself in a dilemma. He was facing dismissal if he refused to work. But he could not retire on pension because petitioners never paid his correct SSS premiums. Petitioners ended his dilemma. They carried out their threat and dismissed him from work, effective June 30, 1994. He ended up sick, jobless and penniless.

On September 13, 1994, Sahot filed with the NLRC NCR Arbitration Branch, a complaint for illegal dismissal, docketed as NLRC NCR Case No. 00-09-06717-94. He prayed for the recovery of separation pay and attorneys fees against Vicente Sy and Trinidad Paulino-Sy, Belen Paulino, Vicente Sy Trucking, T. Paulino Trucking Service, 6B’s Trucking and SBT Trucking, herein petitioners.

For their part, petitioners admitted they had a trucking business in the 1950s but denied employing helpers and drivers. They contend that private respondent was not illegally dismissed as a driver because he was in fact petitioners’ industrial partner.

The NLRC NCR Arbitration Branch, through Labor Arbiter Ariel Cadiente Santos, ruled that there was no illegal dismissal in Sahot’s case. Private respondent had failed to report to work. Moreover, said the Labor Arbiter, petitioners and private respondent were industrial partners before January 1994.

On appeal, the National Labor Relations Commission modified the judgment of the Labor Arbiter. It declared that private respondent was an employee, not an industrial partner, since the start.

ISSUE:

Whether Sahot is an industrial partner.

RULING:

No. Article 1767of the Civil Code states that in a contract of partnership two or more persons bind themselves to contribute money, property or industry to a common fund, with the intention of dividing the profits among themselves. Not one of these circumstances is present in this case. No written agreement exists to prove the partnership between the parties. Private respondent did not contribute money, property or industry for the purpose of engaging in the supposed business. There is no proof that he was receiving a share in the profits as a matter of course, during the period when the trucking business was under operation. Neither is there any proof that he had actively participated in the management, administration and adoption of policies of the business. Thus, the NLRC and the CA did not err in reversing the finding of the Labor Arbiter that private respondent was an industrial partner from 1958 to 1994.

*Case Digest by Paul Jason G. Acasio, JD-IV, Andres Bonifacio Law School, SY 2019-2020