People vs Vera Reyes

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People vs Vera Reyes
G..R. No. L-45748
April 5, 1939

Facts:

The defendant was charged in the Court of First Instance of Manila by the assistant city fiscal with a violation of Act No. 2549, as amended by Acts Nos. 3085 and 3958.

The information alleged that from September 9 to October 28, 1936, the accused, in his capacity as president and general manager of the Consolidated Mines, having engaged the services of Severa Velasco de Vera as stenographer, at an agreed salary of P35 a month willfully and illegally refused to pay the salary of said stenographer corresponding to the above-mentioned period of time, which was long due and payable, in spite of her repeated demands.

After the hearing, the court sustained the demurrer, declaring unconstitutional the last part of section 1 of Act No. 2549 as last amended by Act No. 3958, which considers as an offense the facts alleged in the information, for the reason that it violates the constitutional prohibition against imprisonment for debt, and dismissed the case, with costs de oficio. The fiscal appealed from said order.

In the appeal, the Solicitor-General contends that the court erred in declaring Act No. 3958 unconstitutional, and in dismissing the cause.

The last part of section 1 of Act No. 2549, as last amended by section 1 of Act No. 3958 considers as illegal the refusal of an employer to pay, when he can do so, the salaries of his employees or laborers on the fifteenth or last day of every month or on Saturday of every week, with only two days extension, and the nonpayment of the salary within the periods specified is considered as a violation of the law. The same Act exempts from criminal responsibility the employer who, having failed to pay the salary, should prove satisfactorily that it was impossible to make such payment.

Issue:

(a) W/N the last part of section 1 of Act No. 2549 as last amended by Act No. 3958 is constitutional and valid?

Held:

The court held that this provision is null because it violates the provision of section 1 (12), Article III, of the Constitution, which provides that no person shall be imprisoned for debt. We do not believe that this constitutional provision has been correctly applied in this case. A close perusal of the last part of section 1 of Act No. 2549, as amended by section 1 of Act No. 3958, will show that its language refers only to the employer who, being able to make payment, shall abstain or refuse to do so, without justification and to the prejudice of the laborer or employee. An employer so circumstanced is not unlike a person who defrauds another, by refusing to pay his just debt. In both cases the deceit or fraud is the essential element constituting the offense. The first case is a violation of Act No. 3958, and the second is estafa punished by the Revised Penal Code. In either case the offender cannot certainly invoke the constitutional prohibition against imprisonment for debt.

The Court of Appeal held that the last part of section 1 of Act No. 2549, as last amended by section 1 of Act No. 3958, is valid, and reversed the appealed order with instructions to the lower court to proceed with the trial of the criminal case until it is terminated, without special pronouncement as to costs in this instance. So ordered.