Del Castillo, J.
ABOSTA SHIPMANAGEMENT CORPORATION, PANSTAR SHIPPING CO., LTD., AND/OR GAUDENCIO MORALES, Petitioner
-versus-
RODEL DELOS REYES
Respondent.
In case of conflicting medical assessments, the assessment of the company-designated physician prevails unless a third party doctor is sought by the parties.
Issue: whether respondent was entitled to total and permanent disability compensation.
Ruling: No. There is total disability when employee is unable "to earn wages in the same kind of work or work of similar nature that he or she was trained for, or accustomed to perform, or any kind of work which a person of his or her mentality and attainments could do. " On the other hand, there is permanent disability when the worker is unable "to perform his or her job for more than 120 days [or 240 days, as the case may be,] regardless of whether or not he loses the use of any part of his or her body."
In this case, respondent was repatriated for medical treatment. Upon the advice of the company-designated physician, respondent underwent right inginual hemiorrhaphy with mesh imposition. Two months after his surgery or within the 120-day period, he was declared fit to work by the company-designated physician.
In Marlow Navigation Philippines, Inc. v. Osias, the Court declared that-Based on the above-cited provision, the referral to a third doctor is mandatory when: (1) there is a valid and timely assessment by the company-designated physician and (2) the appointed doctor of the seafarer refuted such assessment.
Respondent failed to refer the conflicting medical assessments to a third doctor.The Court has consistently ruled that in case of conflicting medical assessments, referral to a third doctor is mandatory; and that in the absence of a third doctor's opinion, it is the medical assessment of the company-designated physician that should prevail.
Under prevailing jurisprudence, "the assessment of the company-designated physician is more credible for having been arrived at after months of medical attendance and diagnosis, compared with the assessment of a private physician done in one day on the basis of an examination or existing medical records."
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