Cosmos Bottling Corp vs Fermin

Facts:

Wilson B. Fermin (Fermin) was a forklift operator at Cosmos. He was accused of stealing the cellphone of his fellow employee. Fermin was then given a Show Cause Memorandum, requiring him to explain why the cellphone was found inside his locker.] In compliance therewith, he submitted an affidavit the following day, explaining that he only hid the phone as a practical joke and had every intention of returning it to Braga. After conducting an investigation, COSMOS found Fermin guilty of stealing Braga’s phone in violation of company rules and regulations] Consequently, on 2 October 2003, the company terminated Fermin from employment after 27 years of service. Fermin filed a Complaint for Illegal Dismissal.

Labor Arbiter - dismissed for lack of merit on the ground that the act of taking a fellow employee’s cellphone amounted to gross misconduct.

NLRC - affirmed

CA - eversed the rulings of the LA and the NLRC and awarded him his full retirement benefitsIt must be noted that in the case at bar, all the lower tribunals were in agreement that Fermin’s act of taking Braga’s cellphone amounted to theft.

Issue :

whether the imposition of the penalty of dismissal was appropriate.

Held:

Yes. Theft committed against a co-employee is considered as a case analogous to serious misconduct, for which the penalty of dismissal from service may be meted out to the erring employee by virtue of Article 282 of the Labor Code Misconduct involves “the transgression of some established and definite rule of action, forbidden act, a dereliction of duty, willful in character, and implies wrongful intent and not mere error in judgment.” 

For misconduct to be serious and therefore a valid ground for dismissal, it must be:

 1. of grave and aggravated character and not merely trivial or unimportant and

 2. connected with the work of the employee.

 Nonetheless, Article 282(e) of the Labor Code talks of other analogous causes or those which are susceptible of comparison to another in general or in specific detail. For an employee to be validly dismissed for a cause analogous to those enumerated in Article 282, the cause must involve a voluntary and/or willful act or omission of the employee. A cause analogous to serious misconduct is a voluntary and/or willful act or omission attesting to an employee’s moral depravity. Theft committed by an employee against a person other than his employer, if proven by substantial evidence, is a cause analogous to serious misconduct.