MCDONALD’S (KATIPUNAN BRANCH) VS MA. DULCE ALBA

MCDONALD’S (KATIPUNAN BRANCH)

VS

MA. DULCE ALBA
574 SCRA 427 (2008)

Violation of established rules and policies, to be considered serious misconduct, should be performed with wrongful intent.

Ma. Dulce Alba (Alba) was hired as part of the service crew of McDonald’s Katipunan Branch. During the orientation of newly hired employees, McDonald’s provided Alba with a copy of the Crew Employee Handbook on rules and regulations including its meal policies, which state that an employee was not permitted to eat inside the crew room while on duty, and that doing so would result in summary dismissal.

Rizza Santiago (Santiago), another crew member, reported to the store manager Kit Alvarez (Alvarez) that she witnessed Alba eating inside the crew room during her duty. McDonald’s thus suspended Alba for five days because of the incident. When asked about it, Alba explained that she did indeed ate inside the crew room but that it was only because she was had a stomach ache due to hunger. Nevertheless, McDonald’s found Alba guilty of flouting company regulations and immediately terminated her services. Alba thus lodged a complaint against McDonald’s before the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) which dismissed it without prejudice.

Alba re-filed her complaint, and after submission of the parties’ respective position papers and responsive pleadings, Labor Arbiter Pablo Espiritu Jr. found in favor of Alba, holding that while she violated the meal policy of McDonald’s, dismissal was too harsh a penalty, and suspension without pay would have sufficed. McDonald’s appealed the finding of the Labor Arbiter to the NLRC, which denied the same.

ISSUE:
Whether or not the violation of the meal policy amounts to serious or willful misconduct which would justify dismissal

HELD:
There is no dispute that Alba violated McDonald’s meal policy. The only issue is whether such violation amounts to or borders on “serious or willful” misconduct or willful disobedience, as petitioners posit, to call for respondent’s dismissal. By any measure, the Supreme Court holds not.

With respect to serious misconduct, it is not sufficient that the act or the conduct complained of must have violated some established rules or policies. It must have been performed with wrongful intent.

McDonald’s, on which the onus of proving lawful cause in sustaining the dismissal of Alba lies, failed to prove that her misconduct was induced by a perverse and wrongful intent, they having merely anchored their claim that she was on her knowledge of the meal policy.

While McDonald’s wields a wide latitude of discretion in the promulgation of policies, rules and regulations on work-related activities of its employees, these must, however, be fair and reasonable at all times, and the corresponding sanctions for violations thereof, when prescribed, must be commensurate thereto as well as to the degree of the infraction.

Given Alba’s claim that she was having stomach pains due to hunger, which is not implausible, the same should have been properly taken into account in the imposition of the appropriate penalty for violation of the meal policy. McDonald’s suspension for five days sufficed. With that penalty, the necessity of cautioning other employees who may be wont to violate the same policy was not compromised.

Moreover, McDonald’s likewise failed to prove any resultant material damage or prejudice on their part as a consequence of respondent’s questioned act. Their claim that the act would cause “irremediable harm to the company’s business” is too vague to merit consideration.