The Teacher-Student relationship Case

    CHUA – QUA vs. CLAVE CASE

In 1976, a teacher married her student and got fired. :)

This case was about an affair and marriage of 30 years old teacher Evelyn Chua in Tay Tung High School in Bacolod City to her 16 years old student, Mr. Bobby Qua. The petitioner teacher was suspended without pay and was terminated of his employment “for Abusive and Unethical Conduct Unbecoming of a Dignified School Teacher” which was filed by a public respondent as a ground for her termination.

This would have been just another illegal dismissal case were it not for the controversial and unique situation that the marriage of Evelyn Chua, then a classroom teacher, to her student who was fourteen (14) years her junior, was considered by the school authorities as sufficient basis for terminating her services. The case went on to the Supreme Court which ruled in favor of Evelyn.

The Supreme Court declared the dismissal illegal saying:

“.....[the school] utterly failed to show that petitioner [30-year old lady teacher] took advantage of her position to court her student [16-year old]. If the two eventually fell in love, despite the disparity in their ages and academic levels, this only lends substance to the truism that the heart has reasons of its own which reason does not know. But, definitely, yielding to this gentle and universal emotion is not to be so casually equated with immorality. The deviation of the circumstances of their marriage from the usual societal pattern cannot be considered as a defiance of contemporary social mores.”

This is a truly remarkable case wherein the Supreme Court ruled in favor of “love”. J