2. Employment Subject to a Suspensive Condition

Employment Subject to a Suspensive Condition

Concept

Employment subject to a suspensive condition involves an agreed event on which the acquisition of an employment-related right depends. The governing idea is conditionality: the right dependent on the condition is acquired upon the happening of the specified event. The condition must therefore be identified before its effect can be assessed. (Art. 1181, Civil Code)¹

Governing provisions

Article 1181 of the Civil Code provides that, in conditional obligations, the acquisition of rights depends on the happening of the event constituting the condition. It also addresses conditions governing the extinguishment or loss of rights already acquired. These are different effects, and a condition affecting acquisition should not automatically be treated as one ending an existing right. (Art. 1181, Civil Code)¹

Requisites / Rules

• Identify the particular event said to constitute the condition. A general assertion that employment is “conditional” does not, by itself, identify what must happen. (Art. 1181, Civil Code)¹
• Identify the right said to depend on that event. Article 1181 speaks to the acquisition of rights and, separately, to the extinguishment or loss of rights already acquired. (Art. 1181, Civil Code)¹
• Determine whether the event has happened before concluding that a right subject to a suspensive condition has been acquired. Do not assume that every employment-related right necessarily depends on the same event. (Art. 1181, Civil Code)¹

Distinctions

A condition governing the acquisition of a right differs from one governing the loss of an existing right. For employment problems, that distinction matters when a party characterizes an event as preventing employment from taking effect rather than ending an employment relationship already in place. Article 1181 supplies the framework for distinguishing those effects, but the identified right and event remain central to the analysis. (Art. 1181, Civil Code)¹

Do not treat the stated end of a contract or probationary period as conclusive proof that there was no dismissal. In University of St. La Salle v. Glaraga, non-renewal of fixed-term contracts during the teachers’ three-year probationary period amounted to dismissal, not a mere lapse of probation. That ruling concerns the characterization of non-renewal; it does not establish that every conditional employment arrangement creates, or fails to create, an employment relationship. (University of St. La Salle v. Glaraga, G.R. No. 224170, 10 June 2020)²

Key doctrines

The practical inquiry is what the condition controls: acquisition of a specified right or loss of one already acquired. A label attached to an employment arrangement cannot replace that inquiry. Where the issue instead concerns non-renewal during probation, University of St. La Salle v. Glaraga shows why the characterization of what occurred must be assessed on the facts rather than on the employer’s description of the contract’s expiration. (Art. 1181, Civil Code)¹ (University of St. La Salle v. Glaraga)²

Bar tip

State the event, the right it affects, and whether the event happened. Then distinguish a right awaiting acquisition from an existing employment relationship allegedly ended by non-renewal. (Art. 1181, Civil Code)¹ (University of St. La Salle v. Glaraga)²