The Supreme Court (SC) has ordered a ship management company and its officers to pay permanent disability benefits amounting to $90,000 or around P5 million to a seafarer employee who was injured while playing basketball.
In a 21-page decision promulgated in July, the SC Third Division granted a petition that assailed a decision and resolution of the Court of Appeals.
The CA decision affirmed the resolution of the National Labor Relations Commission, which in turn reversed a decision that ruled in favor of complainant Rosell Arguilles for disability benefits.
According to the SC, the 2010 Philippine Overseas Employment Administration Standard Employment Contract (POEA SEC) denied a work-related injury as an “injury arising out of and in the course of employment.”
“Nowhere in this definition is it required that a seafarer must suffer an injury while he or she is actually performing his or her duties,” the Court said.
The Court stressed that Section 2(A) of the POEA SEC also provides that the employment contract of a seafarer shall be effective until his date of arrival at the point of hire upon termination of his employment.
Further, it said Section 1(A)(4) states that an employer is duty bound to provide a seaworthy ship for the seafarer and take all reasonable precautions to prevent accidents and injury to the crew.
“It is beyond cavil that petitioner’s injury was sustained while his employment contract was still in effect and while he was still on board…. Accordingly, he suffered his injury in the course of his employment,” it said.
In 2016, Arguilles suffered an injury in his left ankle while he was playing basketball with his work colleagues in their free time. The SC said magnetic resonance imaging showed a severely attenuated Achilles tendon consistent with high-grade partial tear.
Meanwhile, the Court stressed that not all injuries sustained by a seafarer aboard a ship shall be compensable, saying that an employer was never intended to be an insurer against all accidental injuries which might happen to an employee while in the course of employment.
It said this will only apply for “such injuries arising from or growing out of the risks peculiar to the nature of work in the scope of the workmen’s employment or incidental to such employment, and accidents in which it is possible to trace the injury to some risk or hazard to which the employee is exposed in a special degree by reason of such employment.”
The SC said that a seafarer will be disqualified from receiving benefits should the employer prove the following: that the injury, incapacity, or disability is directly attributable to the seafarer; that the seafarer committed a crime or willful breach of duties; the causation between the injury, incapacity, or disability, and the crime or breach of duties.
“Here, petitioner was merely playing basketball, an employer-sanctioned activity onboard the vessel. It cannot be considered as a reckless or deliberate activity that is unmindful of one’s safety,” the Court said.
“The records are bereft of any evidence, much less the slightest indication, that the injury suffered by petitioner was intentionally or negligently incurred. Thus, his injury is worthy of compensation,” it added.—LDF, GMA Integrated News
