People vs Pomar

FACTS:

1. The defendant is accused of violation of Section 13 in connection with Section 15 of Act No. 3071.

a) Section 13 - Every person, firm or coporation shall be obliged to grant any woman employed
by it as laborer who may be pregnant, 30 days vacation with pay before and after confinement.

b) Section 15 - Violator shall be punished by a fine of not less than P50 but not more than P250.

c) Said law was enacted with the purpose of safeguarding the health of pregnant women laborers
in factory, shop or place of any description.

2. Julio Pomar - manager and person-in-charge of la Flor de la Isabela, a tobacco factory.

3. In 1923, Macaria Fajardo, an employee therein, was granted vacation leave by reason of pregnancy.

4. Pomar is accused of failing and refusing to pay Fajardo of her regular wages corresponding to 30 days
before and 30 days after her delivery and confinement despite and over the demands made by Fajardo.

5. Pomar filed a demurrer of evidence but was overruled. He admitted at the trial all of the allegations
and contended that the provisions of said law which the complaint was based were illegal,
unconstitutional and void.

6. Trial Court - found the defendant guilty of the alleged offense and sentenced him to pay a fine of
P50.00 and adjudged to suffer subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency.

ISSUE:

1. WON Act 3071 has been adopted in the reasonable and lawful exercise of the police power of the
State.

RATIO:

1. Jeremy Bentham - Police power in general a system of precaution, either for the prevention of crimes
or of calamities. Its business may be distributed into eight distinct branches:

a) Police for prevention of offenses;

b) Police for the prevention of calamities;

c) Police for the prevention of endemic diseases;

d) Police for charity;

e) Police of interior communications;

f) Police of public amusements;

g) Police for recent intelligence; and

h) Police for registration.

2. It is much easier to perceive and realize the existence and sources of the police power than to exactly
mark its boundaries or prescribe limits to its exercise by the legislative department of the government.

3. Adkins vs Children’s Hospital - The right to contract about one’s own affairs was a part of the liberty of
the individual under the Constitution. That the right to contract about one’s affairs is a part of the liberty of
the individual protected by this clause is settled by the decision of this court, and is no longer to open to
question. Within this liberty are contracts of employment. In making such contracts, generally speaking,
the parties have an equal right to obtain from each other the best terms they can as the result of private
bargaining.

4. Act 3071:
 a) It takes account of the necessities of only one part to the contract. It ignores the
necessities of the employer by compelling him to pay not less than a certain sum, not only
whether the employee is capable of earning it, but irrespective of the ability of his business to
sustain the burden, generously leaving him the privilege of abandoning his business as an
alternative for going on at a loss.

b) To the extend that the sum fixed exceeds the fair value of the services needed, it amounts to a
compulsory exaction from the employer for the support of a partially indigent person, for
whose condition there rests upon him no peculiar responsibility, and therefore, arbitrarily shifts
to his shoulders a burden which, if it belongs to anybody, belongs to society as a whole.

c) No difference between the case of selling labor and the case of selling goods.

d) While it is said that the law in question is required in the interest of social justice for whose
freedom of contract may lawfully be subjected to restraint, the liberty of the individual to do as
e pleases, even in innocent matters, is not absolute.

e) The employer and the employee have equality of right, and any legislation that disturbs that
equality is an arbitrary interference with the liberty of contract, which no government can
legally justify in a free land,under a constitution which provides that no person shall be
deprived of his liberty without due process of law.

f) Included in the right of personal liberty and the right of private property is the right to make
contracts for the acquisition of property. If this right be struck down or arbitrarily interfered with,
there is a substantial impairment of liberty. The right is as essential to the laborer as to the
capitalist.

g) The right to liberty includes the right to enter into contracts and to terminate contracts.

h) Liberty includes not only the right to labor, but to refuse to labor, and consequently, the right to
contract to labor or for labor, and to terminate such contracts, and to refuse to make such
contracts.

i) The law at hand creates a term or condition in every contract made by every person, form or
corporation with any woman who may, during the course of her employment, becomes
pregnant, and a failure to include in said contract the terms fixed to a fine and employment.

j) Thus the law deprives every person, firm or corporation owning or managing a factory,
shop or place of labor of his right to enter into contracts of employment upon such
terms as he and the employee may agree upon.

k) The law creates a term in every such contract without the consent of the parties. Such
persons are therefore deprived of their liberty to contract.

l) Also, it is noted that the law takes no account of contracts for the employment of women by
the day nor by the piece. As such, any person could be compelled under the aw to pay for 60
days during which no services were rendered.

5. Act 3071 is unconstitutional an void.