NEWS BRIEFS
Court gives Royal Crown time to appeal
Associate Judge Juan T. Lizama last Friday granted the motion for reconsideration filed by the Royal Crown Insurance Corporation and threw out the request by the Department of Labor and Immigration for a summary judgment.
In deciding in favor of the defendant, the Superior Court upheld the need for due process and disregard the merits of administrative orders from DOLI.
The court said that the question on whether Royal Crown received the notice for the February 10,1998 administrative hearing has presented a genuine issue of fact.
As pointed out by the Royal Crown, the company was informed about the hearing after it received the “notice of claim” on April 8, 1998. It never had the opportunity to make an appeal for the administrative order issued by DOLI on February 17, 1998 since it only gave the company 15 days to submit the appeal.
Royal Crown was asked by DOLI to pay the proceeds of two surety bonds for the three non-resident workers.
Legal theory of recovery
After the plaintiff amended its first complaint, the Superior Court considered the original loan theory not as an unequivocal statement of fact and denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss.
When Guadalupe P. Manglona filed the complaint in 1993, it alleged that she loaned $250,000 to Margarita Tenorio. However, during the trial, evidence and testimonies presented were suggesting that the money was not a loan. Rather, it was a partial payment for Manglona’s purchase of Tenorio’s property.
After she amended her complaint, Tenorio responded by filing a motion to dismiss. She submitted her appeal to the Supreme Court in which it was dismissed.
In March this year, Tenorio filed a motion to dismiss the first amended complaint and for entry of Final Judgment.
In deciding in favor of Manglona, the court said the loan theory which was the contention of the first complaint is not unequivocal statement of fact but only a statement of a legal theory of recovery. Thus, it did not a constitute a judicial admission. (SDA)
