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Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf v. Rolly Arenas

Rolly Arenas was illegally dismissed from his job as a barista at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. While he committed some minor infractions like being late to work a few times and eating chips during an unauthorized break, these actions did not constitute willful disobedience, gross negligence, or serious misconduct. His tardiness was infrequent and the instances were broadly spaced out. Placing an iced tea bottle in the ice bin was a mistake, but when confronted, Arenas immediately admitted to it rather than lying. Therefore, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf did not have valid grounds for terminating Arenas' employment.

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Kathleen Cruz
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94 views8 pages

Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf v. Rolly Arenas

Rolly Arenas was illegally dismissed from his job as a barista at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. While he committed some minor infractions like being late to work a few times and eating chips during an unauthorized break, these actions did not constitute willful disobedience, gross negligence, or serious misconduct. His tardiness was infrequent and the instances were broadly spaced out. Placing an iced tea bottle in the ice bin was a mistake, but when confronted, Arenas immediately admitted to it rather than lying. Therefore, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf did not have valid grounds for terminating Arenas' employment.

Uploaded by

Kathleen Cruz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Coffee Bean & Tea

Leaf v. Rolly Arenas


G.R. No. 208908; March 11, 2015
Coffee Bean hired Rolly
Arenas to work as a barist in
their Paseo Branch.
His principal functions
included taking orders from
customers and preparing their
ordered food and beverages.
After inspection or after the vist of the "mystery

shopper" Basallo prepared a store manager’s

report which listed Arenas’ recent infractions, as

follows:

1.Leaving the counter unattended and eating

chips in an unauthorized area while on duty

(March 30, 2009);

2.Reporting late for work on several occasions

(April 1, 3 and 22); and

3.Placing an iced tea bottle in the ice bin

despite having knowledge of company policy

prohibiting the same (April 28, 2009).


Based on the mystery guest shopper

and duty manager’s reports, Arenas

was required to explain his alleged

violations.

However, CBTL found Arenas’ written

explanation unsatisfactory, hence

CBTL terminated his employment.


Whether or not Coffee Bean
illegally dismissed Arenas
from his employment?
Yes, Rolly was illegally dismissed. There was no
willful disobedience, gross negligence ,serious
misconduct on Rolly's part.

For willful disobedience to be a valid cause for dismissal, these two

elements must concur: (1) the employee’s assailed conduct must have been

willful, that is, characterized by a wrongful and perverse attitude; and (2)

the order violated must have been reasonable, lawful, made known to the

employee, and must pertain to the duties which he had been engaged to

discharge.

Arenas may have admitted these wrongdoings, these do not amount to a

wanton disregard of CBTL’s company policies. As Arenas mentioned in his

written explanation, he was on a scheduled break when he was caught eating

at CBTL’s al fresco dining area. During that time, the other service crews were

the one in charge of manning the counter. Notably, CBTL’s employee handbook

imposes only the penalty of written warning for the offense of eating non-CBTL

products inside the store’s premises.


Gross negligence implies a want or absence of, or failure to exercise even a slight

care or diligence, or the entire absence of care.1avvphi1 It evinces a thoughtless

disregard of consequences without exerting any effort to avoid them.18 There is

habitual neglect if based on the circumstances, there is a repeated failure to perform

one’s duties for a period of time.

Arenas’ three counts of tardiness cannot be considered as gross and habitual neglect

of duty. The infrequency of his tardiness already removes the character of

habitualness. These late attendances were also broadly spaced out, negating the

complete absence of care on Arenas’ part in the performance of his duties. Even CBTL

admitted in its notice to explain that this violation does not merit yet a disciplinary

action and is only an aggravating circumstance to Arenas’ other violations.


Due to Arenas' lying about putting his iced tea in the iced cooler:

For misconduct or improper behavior to be a just cause for dismissal,(a) it must be

serious; (b) it must relate to the performance of the employee’s duties; and (c) it

must show that the employee has become unfit to continue working for the

employer.

However, the facts on record reveal that there was no active dishonesty on the

part of Arenas. When questioned about who placed the bottled iced tea inside the

ice bin, his immediate reaction was not to deny his mistake, but to remove the

bottle inside the bin and throw it outside. More importantly, when he was asked to

make a written explanation of his action, he admitted that the bottled iced tea

was his.Thus, even if there was an initial reticence on Arenas’ part, his subsequent

act of owing to his mistake only shows the absence of a deliberate intent to lie or

deceive his CBTL superiors. On this score, we conclude that Arenas’ action did not

amount to serious misconduct.

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