SHARPE SEA PERSONNEL, INC. v. MACARIO MABUNAY ORIENT HOPE AGENCIES, INC. v. MICHAEL E.

JARA
1. BOTH Mabunay (herniated disc, C4-C5) and Jara (fracture shaft of left ulna and left fibula)
suffered injury during their employment

2. BOTH seek permanent and total disability benefits

3. BOTH employers insist that employees must only be entitled to the graded disability given by their company designated
SIMILARITIES physician

4. Both Court of Appeals and Supreme Court found employers company-designated physicians' failure to arrive at a final and
definite assessment of a seafarer's fitness to work or level of disability within the prescribed periods 

5. Thus, finding Mabunay and Jara entitled of permanent and total disability benefits & moral and exemplary damages as affirmed
by SC.
DIFFERENCES
 Company designated physician failed to give  Company designated physician gave Jara disability grading of
Mabunay disability grade Grade 11
 However, Sharpe repeatedly claimed before the
DISABILITY GRADE
proceedings in the labor tribunals that Dr. Cruz gave
respondent a Grade 8 disability assessment (denied
by SC)
3rd physicians  Mabunay seek out opinion from his private doctors  Jara did not seek out opinions from another physician

SHARPE fault Mabunay for not consulting a third doctor
when his private physicians disagreed with the Grade 8
disability assessment of the company-designated physician.
Invoking Section 20(B)(3) of the POEA-SEC
Orient further argue that pursuant to Section 20(B) of the POEA-
SEC there must be resort to a third physician to settle any conflict in the
findings of the company-designated physician. Since respondent did not
comply with this procedure, then it is the company- designated
physician's determination that must prevail.

CONTENTIONS  SHARPE claims POEA-SEC itself that provides the  Orient contend that based on prevailing jurisprudence, the 120-
requisites for the determination and award of day period within which a company-designated physician must
disability compensation. THUS, MUST BE THE give an assessment or declare a seafarer fit to work is extendible
GOVERNING LAW to 240 days.

 Posit that Article 192(c)(i) of the Labor Code, which
provides for total and permanent disability if the
worker is unable to perform his job for more than
120 days, is only applicable to claims before the
Employees Compensation Commission and NOT TO
 Where the 240-day period has lapsed without any such
declaration from a company-designated doctor, a presumption
then arises which may entitle the seafarer to permanent and
total disability compensation.
 CLAIMS COVERED BY THE POEA-SEC.
Ruling  POEA-Standard Employment Contract; As part of a
seafarer’s deployment for overseas work, he and the
vessel owner or its representative local manning
agency are required to execute the Philippine
Overseas Employment Administration-Standard
Employment Contract (POEA-SEC)
 With the company-designated physicians’ failure to
issue either a fit-to-work certification or a final
disability rating within the prescribed periods,
respondent’s disability was rightfully deemed to be
total and permanent
 Petitioners’ bad faith was further exacerbated when
they tried to invalidate the findings of respondent’s
private physicians, for his supposed failure to move
for the appointment of a third-party physician as
required by the Philippine Overseas Employment
Administration-Standard Employment Contract
(POEA-SEC), despite their own deliberate
concealment of their physician’s interim diagnosis
from respondent and the labor tribunals.
 Manning and shipping companies are always in a
better position than their employees in accessing,
preserving, and presenting their evidence
 Orient argue that this presumption is NOT APPLICABLE to
respondent's case in light of the Grade 11 disability assessment
made by their company-designated physician.
 Jurisprudence teaches that in claims for a seafarer’s disability
benefits, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration-
Standard Employment Contract (POEA-SEC) is deemed
incorporated in the seafarer’s employment contract and must be
read in light of the relevant provisions on disability of the Labor
Code and its implementing rules
 Permanent Total Disability; Without sufficient justification for
the extension of the treatment period, a seafarer’s disability
shall be conclusively presumed to be permanent and total
o Talaroc v. Arpaphil Shipping Corp (838 S 402, 2017)
 Total disability refers to an employee’s inability to perform his or
her usual work. It does not require total paralysis or complete
helplessness. Permanent disability, on the other hand, is a
worker’s inability to perform his or her job for more than one
hundred twenty (120) days, or two hundred forty (240) days if
the seafarer required further medical attention justifying the
extension of the temporary total disability period, regardless of
whether or not he loses the use of any part of his body.
 The third-doctor rule does not apply when there is no valid final
and definitive assessment from a company designated physician.
 Indeed, petitioners only submitted the medical report with the
Grade 11 disability rating when they filed their Position Paper
dated May 27, 2008 with the Labor Arbiter and, accordingly,
expressed their willingness to pay disability benefits equivalent
only to Grade 11 disability. This reveals petitioners' disregard of
respondent's unfortunate plight. Petitioners' bad faith is further
evident when they tried to invalidate respondent's complaint for
his supposed failure to move for the appointment of a third-
party physician as required by the POEA-SEC, when they knew
that no prognosis whatsoever was issued by the company-
designated physician other than the medical report dated May
29, 2008.
 The standard provisions in the 2000 Philippine Overseas
Employment Administration-Standard Employment Contract
(POEA-SEC) is a regulatory attempt to balance the constitutional
protection to labor with the need for shipping and manning
agencies to have an efficient basis for the resolution of claims
against them.