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AT A GLANCE:
Actively participating in profane conversations with coworkers using company resources during office hours and sending company information to one’s personal email address in violation of company rules amount to serious misconduct, which is a just cause of terminating one’s employment. (Janssen D. Perez v. JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A. – Philippine Global Service Center, G.R. No. 256939, November 13, 2023)
In the case of Janssen D. Perez v. JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A. – Philippine Global Service Center (G.R. No. 256939, November 13, 2023), the Supreme Court ruled that actively participating in profane conversations with coworkers using company resources during office hours and sending company information to one’s personal email address in violation of company rules amount to serious misconduct, which is a just cause of terminating one’s employment.
The facts of the case are as follows:
In June 2008, Janssen D. Perez (Perez) was hired by JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A. – Philippine Global Service Center (JP Morgan Chase) as a customer service representative under its Human Resources Department.
In May 2014, Perez receive a Notice to Explain from JP Morgan Chase for the following using the Office Communicator, a private chatroom for employees, to talk about agents, supervisors, and other colleagues using indecent, profane and disrespectful language with other employees.
While he admitted to respond in the private chatroom, he denied using profane and abusive language. He likewise admitted having access to employee information and having sent emails to his personal email address.
Both acts are in violation of the company’s Guidelines on Workplace Behavior, particularly on general conduct and decorum, to wit:
GWB L.1.1. Serious Misconduct – Dismissal
GWB L.1.10. Use or display of offensive, libelous, indecent, insulting, profane, abusive, disrespectful, discriminatory or derogatory language or conduct – Dismissal
GWB L.2.4. Unauthorized sharing of confidential or proprietary company, client, supplier or employee information or material to any person who has no business need [sic] to know- Dismissal
After the conduct of an administrative conference, on in October 2014, Perez received a Notice of Resolution informing him of the company’s decision to terminate his employment.
In March 2018, Perez filed a Complaint for Illegal Dismissal with prayer for separation pay, in lieu of reinstatement, backwages, damages, and attorney’s dees against JP Morgan Chase.
The Labor Arbiter, in its decision in July 2018, found Perez illegally dismissed and ordered JP Morgan Chase to pay Perez his separation pay, backwages, and attorney’s fees.
The National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) upheld the ruling of the Labor Arbiter and ruled that Perez was illegally dismissed because the penalty of dismissal was not commensurate to the offense committed.
In its October 2020 Decision, the Court of Appeals (CA) reversed the ruling of the NLRC. The CA found that: (1) Perez clearly participated in lewd conversations with coworkers using company resources during office hours; and (2) he sent an official communication by his manager to his personal email address, without any authorization and justification.
In a Petition for Review on Certiorari to the Supreme Court (SC), Perez insisted that his purported acts of participating in a discussion with several colleagues using the Office Communicator and his office email address to send an email cannot amount to serious misconduct sufficient to justify his dismissal.
The Supreme Court ruled:
Misconduct has been defined as the “transgression of some established and definite rule of action, a forbidden act, a dereliction of duty, willful in character, and implies wrongful intent and not mere error in judgment.”
To validly justify the termination of employment, the misconduct must:
- be serious, or of such grave and aggravated character and not trivial or unimportant;
- relate to the performance of the employee’s duties; and
- show that the employee has become unfit to continue working for the employer.
Misconduct must likewise be shown to be severe so as to warrant the employee’s termination of employment. There are several factors to consider the severity warranting employment termination, to wit:
“There are several ways to manifest the severity that suffices to qualify Perez’s alleged misconduct or breach of trust as so grave that terminating his employment is warranted. It may be through the nature of the act itself: spanning an entire spectrum between, on one end, an overlooked error, made entirely in good faith; and, on another end, outright larceny. It may be through the sheer amount mishandled. It may be through frequency of acts. It may be through other attendant circumstances, such as attempts to destroy or conceal records and other evidence, or evidence of a motive to undermine the business of an employer.”
On the first ground, the Court of Appeals held that respondent sufficiently established that Perez actively participated in profane conversation with coworkers using company resources or the Office Communicator during office hours. The Court of Appeals considered:
First, the Office Communicator is a work tool provided by Perez for easy communication among its employees strictly for office-related matters. This is a fact known to Perez but he and his co-employees used the office chatroom for private and lewd conversations instead.
Second, the conversation in the chatroom was carried out between Perez and co-workers making reference to female employees and other colleagues, using very obscene and offensive language (such as “send ko senyo pic namin habang dinidilaan ko tinggil nya” “kinain nyo ba puke nya, ” “halos luwa na dede, ” “sarap ikiskis yung ulo ng etits ko sa katawan nya” and many others.)
Third, it must be emphasized that Perez was an employee of the HR department and he had been in the office for more than six years when the investigation was started. As such, he is expected to be fully aware and very much familiar with office rules and regulations, including the company’s Guidelines on Work [B]ehavior. He was also expected to be a good example in the implementation of the company policies. Instead, Perez not only tolerated the gross and vulgar conversation, he actively participated in it.
Fourth, even Perez himself admitted his wrongdoing. As he expressed in his written explanation:
I am aware that I am guilty of using the company resources improperly and this will serve as a lesson for me. I love this job and I am not gonna do things that would jeopardize my employment with the company.
During the administrative conference, Perez admitted that (1) the OC chat room was used for non-work-related matters, (2) the OC conversation was inappropriate, (3) it was a conversation among friends, and (4) it was not the usual tone of conversation he would have while inside company premises. He also admitted that there were female colleagues described in the conversation using a sexual tone, which he further admitted was inappropriate. He likewise admitted that the word “gaga” can be profane word.
On the second ground, the Court of Appeals considered respondent’s prevailing Code of Conduct provisions on confidentiality in ruling against Perez upon finding that Perez forwarded an official communication from his manager, without any authorization or justification, to his personal email address.
Here, Perez had been an employee of the Human Resources Department for more than six years, and thus, he was expected to be fully aware of the company rules. His own admission of participating and using the company chatroom in uttering indecent words about female colleagues and sending out company information to his personal email address amount to willful transgression of the company’s Guidelines on Workplace Behavior. His transgressions patently relate to the performance of his duties as part of the Human Resources Department, expected as he was to exhibit good conduct. His acts rendered him unfit to continue working for respondent.
Thus, for committing serious misconduct, Perez was validly terminated for a just cause.
In return for the extensive obligations to the employee that the law imposes on the employer, the employer can lawfully and reasonably expect from its employee not only good performance, adequate work and diligence, but also good conduct and loyalty. As such, in the exercise of its management prerogative, the employer can discipline its employees, impose appropriate penalties on their infractions pursuant to company rules, and may not be compelled to continue employing persons whose continuance in the service will be inimical to its interests.
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