THE Supreme Court (SC) said it ruled in favor of a seafarer who had sued his recruiter for over $60,000 in disability benefits and allowances after contracting diabetes on the job.
The court reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals (CA) which had dismissed the petition of seafarer Apolinario Z. Zonio, Jr.
The Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Zonio is entitled to permanent total disability benefits of $60,000, a $2,024 sickness allowance and 10% attorney’s fees from 88 Aces Maritime Services, Inc.
Upon returning from his last contract, Mr. Zonio asked to be referred to the company doctor but was refused due to the completion of his contract. In 2013, another doctor diagnosed him with diabetes mellitus and in 2015 he was declared unfit to work by a municipal health officer due to hyperglycemia.
He sought benefits from the agency, claiming that he contracted diabetes while on the job, and the Supreme Court agreed with him.
The court’s third division said that Mr. Zonio’s working conditions “exposed him to physical, mental and emotional strain and stress and that such triggered his diabetes mellitus as proved by the medical records he had presented.”
The court said that if the respondents granted the seafarer’s request for a post-employment check-up, they could have been able to establish that the disease was not work-related.
“Having failed to present evidence to defeat the presumption of work-relatedness of Zonio’s diabetes mellitus, the prima facie case that it is work-related prevails,” the court said.
“[B]etween the non-existent medical assessment of the company-designated physician and the medical assessment of Apolinario [Zonio]’s doctor of choice — stating that his disability is permanent and total — the latter evidently stands,” it added.
The seafarer filed a complaint before the Labor Arbiter against the agency and its responsible officers in May 2015, claiming he experienced dizziness in 2012. A hospital in Saudi Arabia found him to have high glucose readings and cholesterol levels and was advised to observe proper diet and was given medicine.
In 2012, he said he experienced dizziness and blurred vision and the same hospital diagnosed him with diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia.
The Labor Arbiter ruled in favor of Mr. Zonio and 88 Aces appealed the case to the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC), which reversed the Arbiter’s findings saying the health findings of Mr. Zonio cannot be given weight as they were issued three years after his repatriation and that he was not able to prove that his illness was work-related.
The CA in a July 31, 2017 decision and April 26, 2018 resolution affirmed the NLRC’s ruling. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas
