The Supreme Court upheld the reinstatement of an employee who was dismissed for abandonment after it found that his failure to report to work was due to his being arrested and detained for a criminal charge for which he was later acquitted.

In a 10-page SC Third Division decision penned by Justice Ma. Alicia Austria-Martinez, the Court upheld the Court of Appeals (CA) in ruling that petitioner Asian Terminals, Inc. (ATI)  failed to prove that first, stevedore Romeo Labrague had without justification deliberately abandoned his employment or refused to resume his work; and second, that he performed overt acts from which it may be deduced that he no longer intended to work. The Court pointed out that “respondent herein was prevented from reporting for work by reason of his detention. That his detention turned out to be without basis, as the criminal charge upon which said detention was ordered was later dismissed for lack of evidence, made the absences he incurred as a consequence thereof not only involuntary but excusable.”
 
The Court also upheld the CA’s award of backwages to Labrague despite his failure to appeal from the National Labor Relations Commission’s decision, ruling that substantive rights may not be prejudiced by a rigid and technical application of the Rules of Court. It also held that Atty. Rodolfo G. Corvite, Jr., an ATI official, should not be held solidarily liable with ATI, in the absence of a distinct finding of bad faith or malice on his part in terminating Labrague. (GR No.158458, ATI v. NLRC, December 19, 2007)