Short answer. If the treatment is inhuman and unbearable, the article allows it. Article 285 lets an employee end the relationship without serving any notice where there has been inhuman and unbearable treatment by the employer or his representative. Simply stopping without saying why, however, is the risky way to do it.

What the law says

Inhuman and unbearable treatment accorded the employee by the employer or his representative

Labor Code, Article 285 — Resignation By The Employee. Read the full provision →

This cause is built for a pattern

Unlike serious insult, which can be a single incident, treatment describes how you have been dealt with over time. That works in your favour where the problem is daily and cumulative: no one episode needs to be the decisive one, because the provision looks at the treatment as a whole. It also sets the direction of proof. What matters is the pattern — how often, over what period, in front of whom, and whether it continued after you or anyone else raised it — rather than the worst single day.

Both words have to fit

The threshold is high and deliberately so: the treatment must be inhuman and unbearable, not merely unfair, unpleasant or demoralising. A supervisor who is harsh, who allocates work badly, or who is cold towards you, will usually fall short of it. What tends to matter is conduct that degrades you as a person, is directed at you specifically, and has made continuing in the job genuinely untenable. Be realistic about that threshold before acting on it, because the consequence of getting it wrong falls on you.

Walking out silently is the wrong way to invoke it

The article gives you a right to end the relationship without notice. It does not describe a right to simply stop appearing. The difference matters, because an employee who disappears leaves the employer free to characterise what happened as abandonment rather than as a resignation for just cause, and that recharacterisation is the single most common way these situations go wrong. If you are leaving on this ground, send a short written notice that says you are ending the relationship and why. It need not argue the case; it needs to exist and be dated.

Build the record while you are still there

Because the cause depends on a pattern, contemporaneous notes are worth more than anything you can reconstruct afterwards. Keep a dated log of incidents with what was said and who was present. Preserve messages, emails and chat threads before you lose access to the company account. If you have complained internally, keep the complaint and any reply, since an employer that was told and did nothing is in a different position from one that never knew. Those records, with your contract and payslips, are what a lawyer will need.

Related provisions

Note. Statute text quoted on this page is reproduced from the official enactment and is linked to the full provision. The explanation around it is general legal information from Vivas & Nobles Law Office, not legal advice. Whether it applies to your situation depends on facts only a lawyer reviewing them can assess.