FACTS: The petitioners were terminated by the company but the NLRC upheld the dismissal. Later on, the SC reversed the decision and ordered all of them reinstated and paid full backwages but it also held that the officers of the company shouldn’t be held liable. This is the subject of this motion for partial record as the union argues that it was the officers who made the decision to terminate the employees. Petitioners further contend that while the case was pending, the company began removing its machineries and equipment from its plant and began diverting jobs intended for the regular employees to its sub-contractor/satellite branches.
ISSUE: W/N the officers should be held liable for the illegal dismissed.
HELD: The SC ruled that the officers cannot be held liable because a crop has a personality separate and distinct from those acting in its behalf. The rule is that obligations incurred by the corp, through its directors, officers and employees are its sole liabilities. In labor cases, corporate directors and officers are solidarily liable with the corporation for the termination of employment or corporate employees done with malice or in bad faith. Bad faith does not connote bad judgment or negligence; it imports a dishonest purpose of some moral obliquity and conscious doing of wrong; it means breach of a known duty thru some motive or interest or will; it partwages of the nature of fraud. In this case, there is nothing on record to show that the officers acted in patent bad faith or were guilty of gross negligence in terminating the services of petitioners so as to warrant personal liability.
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