Case Digest: NAESS Shipping Phils vs NLRC, GR No. 73441, September 4, 1987

  Labor Law | Policy and Definitions

• Pablo Dublin, the chief steward of the vessel M/V DYVI PACIFIC, fatally stabbed the second cook, Rodolfo Fernandez, during a quarrel, then jumped or fell overboard and disappeared.
• Dublin was employed by NAESS Shipping, Philippines, Inc. under an employment contract that provided for compensation benefits for the loss of life.
• Dublin's widow, Zenaida Dublin, filed a complaint with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) against NAESS for payment of death benefits under the employment contract.
• The employment contract, which incorporated a Special Agreement between the International Workers Federation (ITF) and NAESS, provided for cash benefits to the immediate next of kin in case of death of the crewman.
• Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) Administrator:  Held Dublin's death compensable under said Special Agreement and ordering NAESS to pay complainant and her child compensation benefits.
• NLRC: Affirmed the decision.

WoN the death of Pablo Dublin, who allegedly committed suicide by jumping overboard, is compensable under the employment contract. YES

There is no question that NAESS freely bound itself to a contract which on its face makes it unqualifiedly liable to pay compensation benefits for Dublin's death while in its service, regardless of whether or not it intended to make itself the insurer, in the legal sense, of Dublin's life. No law or rule has been cited which would make it illegal for an employer to assume such obligation in favor of his or its employee in their contract of employment.

The attention of the Court has been invited to the fact that the agreement in question also provides for payment of disability benefits, but that in contrast to compensation for death the right to such benefits is conditioned on lack of fault on the part of the employee concerned for the accident causing disability, thus evincing an intent to treat the two classes of benefits differently. This, it is likewise suggested, militates against reading into the provision for death benefits conditionalities not explicitly stated therein; and, indeed, it does, because it is only logical to assume that if it had been intended to subject NAESS' liability for death benefits to any condition, such as one barring compensation for death by the employee's own hand, whether intentional or otherwise, the contract would have specifically so provided, just as it did in incorporating the lack-of-fault proviso in the disability benefits clause referred to.

... Thus, contract, ... which are the private laws of the contracting parties, should be fulfilled according to the literal sense of their stipulations, if their terms are clear and leave no room for doubt as to the intention of the contracting parties, for contracts are obligatory, no matter what their form may be, whenever the essential requisites for their validity are present. ....

To start with, a few basic principles on the interpretation of contracts should be reiterated. When there is no doubt as to the intention of the contracting parties, its literal meaning shall control. Article 1372 of the New Civil Code further provides that however general the terms of a contract may be, they shall not be understood to comprehend things that are distinct and cases that are different from those upon which the parties intended to agree. Therefore, a meaning other than that expressed or an interpretation which would alter its strict and literal significance should not be given to it. Moreover, the entirety of the contract must be taken into consideration to ascertain the meaning of its provisions. 

In view of what has already been stated, it makes no difference whether Dublin intentionally took his own life, or he killed himself in a moment of temporary aberration triggered by remorse over the killing of the second cook, or he accidentally fell overboard while trying to flee from imagined pursuit, which last possibility cannot be ruled out considering the state of the evidence. It may be noted parenthetically that these conjectures sound equally plausible because the events surrounding the death of Dublin have not been established with any degree of certitude. As already observed, this case was submitted to the POEA for decision on the basis of position papers only. Testimony as to the circumstances of the two deaths on board the M-V DYVI PACIFIC, though presumably available, was never presented. To be sure, NAESS in its position paper adverted to certain declarations of crewmen on the matter supposedly " ... culled from the Official Report of the Master of the vessel ... " but the POEA was furnished only a xerox copy of that document.  Proof of this kind, if it may be called such, which at best is at least twice removed from its primary source, cannot be accepted as indubitably establishing the context within which Dublins death should be viewed. The POEA and the NLRC had every reason to declare that there was lack of conclusive or credible proof that Dublin intentionally took his own life. In any case, this Court is not prepared to rule that a contract contravenes public policy and is therefore void which, by not specifically excepting suicide in a clause obligating one of the parties to pay compensation for the death of the other, may in theory enable the latter's estate, or his heirs, to profit from his self-immolation.

It is also argued that to compel payment of death benefits in this case would amount not only to rewarding the act of murder or homicide, but also inequitably to placing on NAESS the twin burdens of compensating both the killer and his victim, who allegedly had also been employed under a contract with a similar death benefits clause. This argument, in confusing the legal implications and effects of two distinct and independent agreements, carries within itself the seeds of its own refutation. On Dublin's part, entitlement to death benefits resulted from his death while serving out his contract of employment; it was not a consequence of his killing of the second cook, Rodolfo Fernandez. If the latter's death is also compensable, that is due to the solitary fact of his death while covered by a similar contract, not precisely to the fact that he met death at the hands of Dublin That both deaths may be related by cause and effect and NAESS is the single obligor liable for compensation in both cases must, insofar as the factual and legal bases of such liability is concerned, be regarded as purely accidental circumstances. NAESS would have had no reason whatsoever to introduce into the present dispute the matter of compensation benefits for Fernandez had Dublin after killing Fernandez, succumbed to a stroke or a heart attack instead of allegedly taking his own life, because the contract of Fernandez, if the same as that of Dublin as regards death benefits, would unquestionably cover death by murder or misadventure. There would still be no reason to do so, that is, relate the killing of Fernandez to the present compensation claim, merely on the assertion, even if true, that Dublin had committed suicide.

The further claim that payment of death benefits would be premature because, Dublin's body never having been actually recovered, he can only be considered missing, must be rejected, and not only because it so openly conflicts with NAESS' insistence that he committed suicide. The Court has no doubt, from such of the circumstances of the night of September 3, 1983 as to which the parties offer no dispute, that Dublin in fact met his death at that time. 

The award of attorney's fees, however, merits reconsideration and must be set aside. It has not been made to appear that the contract of employment sued upon incorporates any stipulation for payment of attorney's fees in case of breach thereof and the injured party is compelled to litigate for relief thereunder. Neither does the record clearly show any circumstances that would justify an award of such fees in the absence of stipulation. 

WHEREFORE, modified only to set aside and vacate the award of US$3,196.00 for attorney's fees made in the decision of the POEA and affirmed in the Resolution of the National Labor Relations Commission herein complained of, said Resolution is affirmed, with costs against petitioner NAESS.