The Fourth Chamber of the Supreme Court, in a resolution of April 21, 2026 (Docket No. 1,773-2026), rejected a complaint appeal and confirmed that the base period to sue for unjustified dismissal remains 60 working days counted from the separation. Filing an administrative complaint before the Labor Inspectorate suspends that period, but does not transform it into one of 90 days. The 90 working days are an absolute ceiling, not an autonomous period. If your company faces dismissal claims and has workers who went through the Inspectorate before reaching the court, this ruling defines when it can —successfully— raise the lapse defense.
What happened
A worker provided services as a professional driver for TAD SpA. and was dismissed on December 27, 2024 under the grounds of article 160 No. 7 of the Labor Code. He filed an administrative complaint before the Labor Inspectorate on January 7, 2025; the conciliation hearing was held on January 16, 2025 without the company attending. The judicial claim was filed on April 10, 2025 before the Labor Court of La Serena.
The defendant raised the lapse defense: the 60-working-day period of art. 168 of the Labor Code, suspended during the 9 days of the administrative procedure (from January 7 to 16), had expired on March 19, 2025. The claim arrived three weeks later. The court upheld the defense. The La Serena Court of Appeals confirmed.
The worker filed a complaint appeal before the Supreme Court arguing that art. 168 extends the period to 90 working days when an administrative complaint intervenes.
The Fourth Chamber rejected the appeal. Its reasoning: the suspension of the base period does not mutate the 60-day term into a different one. The 90 days operate as an absolute maximum limit to resort to the judiciary, not as an extended period that replaces the 60 days.
There was a dissent. Justice Ricardo Blanco Herrera would have upheld the appeal, arguing that the protective principle and in dubio pro operario require interpreting the phrase "notwithstanding the foregoing" of the final paragraph of art. 168 as the establishment of a differentiated regime when there is an administrative complaint.
What it may mean for your company
Art. 168 of the Labor Code has an architecture of deadlines that generates confusion in practice. This Supreme Court decision clarifies it, and the effect is concrete for companies in the role of defendants.
The rule set is the following: the lapse period begins to run from the dismissal and is counted in working days. If the worker files an administrative complaint within those 60 days, the period is suspended during the processing before the Inspectorate and resumes when it concludes. But the 60 days are the 60 days. The administrative procedure does not turn them into 90.
When do the 90 days serve? Only as an emergency brake: if the sum of the elapsed days plus the suspension were to exceed that number, you can no longer sue in any case. It is a ceiling, not a floor.
The point is no small matter for the business world, and it operates in two directions. First, if you are sued in an unjustified-dismissal lawsuit where the worker went through the Inspectorate before going to court, it is advisable to calculate with precision whether the 60-day base period —discounting the suspension— had already expired at the time the claim was filed. If so, the lapse defense has direct support in this ruling. Second, if you are a company that manages mass terminations or has teams in regions with high labor conflict, this ruling can be used in your defense, but you must also understand that the same logic requires you to act fast when you want to claim yourself: the deadlines run even if there are intermediate procedures in progress.
There is another angle. The dissent of Justice Blanco Herrera —who would have given the worker 90 days— shows that the matter is not settled. A future change in the composition of the chamber or a case with different facts could produce a different result. For now, the rule is set. But it is a rule in dispute, and that has consequences for how you structure your defense: documenting the exact date of the administrative hearing is as important as documenting the date of the dismissal.
Does your company today record the date of the administrative complaint and of the hearing in each contract termination? Schedule a session to review your active cases and detect claims filed out of time.
What you can do
If your company has or anticipates dismissal controversies, the immediate risk is in the files where there is a prior step through the Labor Inspectorate. Three concrete actions:
- Audit the active cases. Review each ongoing unjustified-dismissal claim where the worker went through the Inspectorate before reaching the court. Calculate whether the 60-working-day period, discounting exactly the days of the administrative procedure, had already expired on the date the claim was filed. If there is a difference of days, assess whether the lapse defense was raised in a timely manner and whether it is still within the procedural deadline to do so.
- Standardize the contract-termination protocol. Incorporate into the offboarding flow an automatic record of: (a) the exact date of dismissal, (b) if the worker files a complaint before the Inspectorate, the date of that complaint and the date of the hearing, and (c) the date of resumption of the lapse period. That traceability is not bureaucracy: it is the evidence you need to raise the defense with solid documentary support.
- Train HR and the internal legal area. The confusion between "suspension" and "extension" of the period also exists within companies. A team that understands that the 90 days are a ceiling, not an extended period, will make faster decisions and will not let the procedural defense window expire due to a calculation error.
If any of these points raises questions —your active cases, the offboarding protocol, or the computation of deadlines—, a 30-minute diagnostic session is enough to size up your gaps. Schedule here.
If you want to review ongoing cases in light of this ruling or standardize the contract-termination protocol in your company, schedule a meeting with our team: Schedule meeting
This content is informational and does not constitute legal advice for a specific case.