G.R. No.

221813 MARICALUM MINING CORPORATION vs FLORENTINO

FACTS: The Philippine National Bank and the Development Bank of the Philippines transferred
its ownership of Maricalum Mining (Maricalum) to the National Government for privatization.
Through the Asset Privatization Program (APT), the Government dealt with G Holdings, a
domestic corporation in the business of holding stocks of different companies. G Holdings, after
signing with the Government immediately took possession of Maricalum’s Sipalay Mining
Complex, its facilities, and took full control of its operations. The Sipalay General Hospital
(Sipalay Hospital), located inside the Complex, was incorporated to provide medical service to
the general public.

Maricalum then informed the cooperatives of the workers that its operations will be stopped.
After just a month, the properties of Maricalum were extrajudicially foreclosed and sold to G
Holdings as the highest bidder.

Maricalum workers, including some of Sipalay Hospital’s employees filed a complaint with the
Labor Arbiter (LA) for the alleged violation of their labor standards rights. The workers alleged
that G Holdings was their employer because it had theoretically the power to hire, pay wages,
control working methods, and dismiss them. G Holdings, in essence, deny the existence of
employer-employee relationship between it and the workers.

LA Ruling: The LA ruled in favor of the workers, ratiocinating that G Holdings had become their
employer. G Holdings filed an appeal before the NLRC.
NLRC Ruling: The NLRC modified its ruling, stating that the Sipalay Hospital employees are not
entitled to the monetary awards because they were not able to establish the fact of their
employment relationship with either G Holdings or Maricalum because Sipalay Hospital has a
separate and distinct corporate personality. Finding that their claims remain unresolved, the
parties elevated their case to the Court of Appeals (CA).

CA Ruling: The CA affirmed the decision of the NLRC, finding no reason to disturb its factual
findings.
ISSUE: Whether G Holdings control the conduct the employees of Sipalay Hospital have an
employer-employee relationship?

RULING: No. As applied in the healthcare industry, an employment relationship exists between
a physician and a hospital if the hospital controls both the means and the details of the process
by which the physician is to accomplish his task. But where a person who works for another
performs his job more or less at his own pleasure, in the manner he sees fit, not subject to
definite hours or conditions of work, and is compensated according to the result of his efforts
and not the amount thereof, no employer-employee relationship exists.

By its own articles of incorporation, Sipalay Hospital admits that it offers its medical services to
the general public and not just to the officers and employees of Maricalum and/or G Holdings,
and notwithstanding the fact that Sipalay Hospital is located inside the Mining Complex. The
Hospital is free to deal with any client without any legal or contractual restriction.

The Court ruled that G Holdings does not have a considerable ability to control means and
methods of work of Sipalay Hospital employees.

Hence, there exists no employer-employee relationship between G Holdings and the employees
of Sipalay Hospital.