G.R. No.

78617 June 18, 1990

SALVADOR LAZO, petitioner,
vs.
EMPLOYEES' COMPENSATION COMMISSION & GOVERNMENT SERVICE INSURANCE
SYSTEM (CENTRAL BANK OF THE PHILIPPINES), respondents.

Facts:
Petitioner Salvador Lazo a security guard of Central Bank assigned to its main office in Malate,
Manila. His regular tour duty in from 2pm to 10pm. On June 18, 1986, as the security guard who was
to relieve him failed to arrive, Lazo rendered overtime duty up to 5am of the next day when he asked
permission from his superior to leave early in order to take home to Binangonan, Rizal his sack of
rice.
On his way home, at about 6am, the passenger jeepney he was riding on turned turtle due to
slippery road. As a result, he sustained injuries and was taken to the hospital for treatment.
For the injuries he sustained, petitioner filed a claim for disability benefits under PD 626, as
amended. His claim was denied by the GSIS for the reason that Lazo was not at the work place
performing duties when the incident occurred.
It was held that the condition for compensability had not been satisfied.
Employees Compensation Commission affirmed the decision since the accident which involved the
petitioner occurred far from his work place and while he was attending to a personal matter.
Issue: Whether or not the injuries sustained by the petitioner due to the vehicular accident on his
way home from work should be construed as arising out of or in the course of employment and
thus compensable.
Ruling:
Petitioners submission is meritorious.
The Court has carefully considered the petition and the arguments of the parties and finds that the
petitioner's submission is meritorious.
In the case at bar, petitioner left his station several hours after his regular time off, because the
reliever did not arrive, petitioner was asked to go on overtime. After permission to leave was given,
he went home.There is no evidence on record that petitioner deviated from his usual, regular
homeward route or that interruptions occurred in the journey.



G.R. No. L-14827 October 31, 1960
CHUA YENG, petitioner,
vs.
MICHAELA ROMA, and her minor children GUADALUPE, PILAR, ROSARIO, CORNELIO and
GERARDO,respondents.

Facts:
Santos Romeo was working for petitioner as cargador in loading and unloading copra at the formers
warehouse. After asking permission from his employer, Santos Romeo went to petitioners house
just across the street from the warehouse to get a drink of water, the water pump in the warehouse
being out of order. Reaching the kitchen of said house and while drinking, he saw a puppy eating
some fried fish. He drive away the puppy but as the puppy still continue to eat fish, Santos made a
motion with hand to drive it away in which his right hand was bitten. Santos Romeo died of
hydrophobia from the dog bit. It appears that the puppy was not owned by petitioner.
Appellant contends that, the death of the laborer cannot be considered to arise "out of and in course"
of his employment.
Issue: Whether or not the death of the labour cannot be considered to arise out of and in course of
his employment.
Ruling:
We find no merit in this contention. The rule is well established that
Such acts as are reasonably necessary to the health and comfort of an employee while at
work, such as satisfaction of his thirst, hunger, or other physical demands, or protecting
himself from excessive cold, are nevertheless incidental to the employment, and injuries
sustained in the performance of such act are generally held to be compensable as arising
out of and in the course of the employment.
That Santos Romeo was in the kitchen of appellant's house and not at his usual place of work does
not bring the case out of the operation of the rule previously quoted, for the reason that the laborer
was practically driven to that place through the appellant's fault in not providing an adequate supply
of drinking water at the warehouse.
Appellant urges that the dog bite was provoked by Santos' trying to take the fish away from the
puppy and hence, while he was engaged in an independent activity. We do not regard such act as
voluntary deviation from his duties, considering that the act of the deceased was practically an
instinctive one, that would naturally be expected from any person in his position. Moreover, it was
motivated by a sense of loyalty to his employer, a desire to protect the latter's property, that cannot
be deemed wholly foreign to the duties of the laborer as such. In fact, it has been held that the act of
saving the employee's own property from an apparent danger, is compensable.
Compensation has been granted, even if the injury occurred while the order was not performing acts
strictly within the scope of his duties, but engaged in an activity either related or incidental to his
duties, or doing an act in the interest of his employer.
To the argument that the employee sustained the injury not from drinking water but from driving
away the puppy, suffice it to say that under the circumstances that impelled him to act without
opportunity for deliberate reflection, we are not prepared to say that his act was unreasonable or
negligent. Driving away a puppy is not so fraught with potent danger as to deter every man
possessed of reasonable disposition.
By analogy, the deceased in this case may reasonably get a drink of water to satisfy his thirst; while
drinking, he may reasonably see a puppy eating some fried fish belonging to his employer; and he
may reasonably be expected to make a motion with his hand to drive said puppy away.
At any rate, the resulting injury is not without causation in the conditions under which deceased was
required to perform his work. It appears that there were no adequate and sanitary means of water
supply in the place of work; that petitioner's workers used, for drinking purposes, water from a well at
the back of the warehouse; that this well was out or order at the time of the incident, so that the
deceased had to cross a wide public street to petitioner's house just to get a drink, thereby exposing
himself to hazards which may well have been avoided if there were drinking facilities at, or more
proximate to, the place of work.

G.R. No. L-27588 April 28, 1969
LUZON STEVEDORING CORPORATION, petitioner,
vs.
WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION COMMISSION and ROSARIO VDA. DE ROSANO respondents.

Facts:
At about 6am, stevedore Pastor Rosano went to Pier 9, Manila, to await the arrival of a barge of the
petitioner, scheduled to dock at 9am. While waiting for the vessel, Rosano had a heated verbal
argument with Benjamin Valdez, another stevedore engaged by petitioner, over the possession of a
platform used in the loading and unloading of cargoes taken into or out of the watercraft. Rosano
was able to get it.
As the barge did not arrive as scheduled, Rosano went home for lunch. When he returned at about
1pm, he found the platform again in the possession of Valdez. Rosano's demand for delivery to him
of said platform precipitated another argument which almost ended in fist fight. Valdez gave up the
platform, but not before he had uttered threats against the life of Rosano. When informed that the
barge definitely was not arriving, Rosano with two companions, boarded a passenger jeep. When he
got off from the jeep near his house, he was met by Valzed and stabbed him were he later died.
The widow, Rosario Vda. de Rosano, filed with the Department of labor a formal claim for death
compensation benefits against petitioner Luzon Stevedoring Corporation for Rosanos death. The
company denied the allegations and raising the defense of prescription, in that the calim was filed
beyond the 3-month period from the death of Rosano as provided in the Workmens Compensation
law.
The Acting Referee rendered judgment, ordering the company to pay to the claimants death
compensation benefits. The defense of prescription was rejected, it appearing that the company had
failed to controvert the claimants right to compensation within the period prescribed in Section 45 of
Act 3428.
Issue/s: Whether or not there existed an employer-employee relationship between the petitioner and
the deceased; whether or not the right to demand compensation benefits has not prescribed.
Ruling:
The contention that there existed no employer-employee relationship between petitioner and the late
Pastor Rosano is premised on the allegation that the latter was a "gang boss" working with the
petitioner on an "on and off" basis; that Rosano worked for petitioner when so assigned by the union,
of which he was a member, that, if at all, the employer-employee relationship existed only whenever
the deceased rendered actual service for the petitioner. Since on 30 November 1964 Rosano was
not able to work (because the barge did not arrive), then, according to petitioner, he was not an
employee when he (Rosano) met his death.
There is no merit to this contention. In the first place, while petitioner company failed to submit any
evidence that the work rendered by the deceased was purely casual,
1
it has been established that
prior to the stabbing incident the deceased, with other stevedores, was in the pier prepared to do
hauling jobs for the petitioner's business. And there is unrebutted testimony that the deceased had
been doing stevedoring work for said petitioner for 15 years.
2
Secondly, even assuming petitioner's
allegations to be true, that the deceased was a union member, and that it was the union that
furnished laborers and stevedors when required by petitioner company, presumably with the latter
delivering the stevedoring charges directly to the union for distribution to the individual laborers,
these facts did not make the union an independent contractor whose intervention relieved the said
company of liability for the death of a laborer specially where no contractor's bond was required for
the union's performance of its undertaking.
3
The union here was no more than an agent. And in this
kind of indirect employment, it has been repeatedly held, the employer is not relieved of liability
under the Workmen's Compensation law.
4

It is next claimed for the petitioner that even if he were an employee, Rosano's death is not
compensable because it happened outside of the company premises and not at work.
We do not agree with the appellant. It is evident that the cause of stabbing by Benjamin Valdez can
be traced to their disagreement over the possession of a platform that was to be used in their work
for petitioner. Neither can it be said that the employer is exempt from liability under the Workmen's
Compensation law because the cause of death arose outside of the company premises,
5
when the
quarrel happened at the waterfront at Pier 9.
For an injury to be compensable, it is not necessary that the cause therefor shall take place within
the place of employment. If a workman is acting within the scope of his employment, his protection
"in the course of" the employment usually continues, regard of the place of injury.


In the present case, it cannot be disputed that it is inherent in the stevedoring work for the petitioner
that the laborers, like the deceased, stay in the pier and wait for the docking of petitioner's vessels.
Furthermore, jurisprudence is to the effect that injuries sustained by an employee while in the course
of his employment, as the result of an assault upon his person by another employee, or by a third
person, no question of the injured employee's own culpability being involved, is compensable where,
from the evidence presented, a rational mind is able to trace the injury to a cause set in motion by
the nature of the employment, or some condition, obligation or incident therein, and not by some
other agency.
8

As regards the defense of prescription raised by petitioner, it is true that the formal demand for
compensation for the death of Pastor Rosano was made by the dependent widow and minor children
beyond the 3-month period provided for 'in section 24 of the Workmen's Compensation Act.
Petitioners disclaimer that it had no knowledge of the stabbing is untenable. The law does not speak
of formal notice by the employer, it specifies only knowledge of the accident.When the widow went to
the company premises to demand compensation for the death of her husband a week after the
burial, an unknown employee inside the compound told her that she could not get anything because
the death of her husband did not occur in the company premises. This fact constitutes sufficient
indication that the death of Rosano was already a matter of common knowledge in petitioners office.
The fact remains that the petitioner failed to controvert in due time the right of the claimants to
compensation, as required by section 45 of Act 3428. And the rule is now well-settled that the
requirements (for claimants) of giving of notice of injury and filing of claim within the prescribed
period is non-jurisdictional and does not constitute a bar to compensation proceedings if the
employer, who had knowledge of the accident, failed to controvert the claimant's right to
compensation pursuant to section 45 of the law.