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As the law currently stands, yes, you can, although this issue has been under scrutiny in the Court of Appeal in the joined cases of Barton Turns Developments Ltd v Treadwell and Rice v Wicked Vision Ltd [2024] EAT 29. The cases have been joined because they both deal with the same technical point.
The issue is whether an employee can bring a s.47B detriment claim against a colleague who decided to dismiss, as well as bring a s.103A automatically unfair dismissal case against their employer. The case of Timis & Sage v Osipov [2019] ICR 655 created new law when it determined that this is possible. That decision and the precedent it created are being challenged by employers, and it is this that the Court of Appeal has been asked to decide.
The Court of Appeal has now handed down its judgment.
Whilst the appeal was dismissed, the Court of Appeal made it clear that they did so because they were not free to depart from the precedent in Osipov. Had they been free to do so, they said they would have.
Permission to appeal to the Supreme Court was as good as given, so once again, we watch this space. Any application for permission is likely to succeed.
For now, a detriment claim can be brought against individual managers as well as an automatically unfair dismissal claim against the employing organisation. Was this dual liability ever the intention of Parliament? The law needs clarification.
One has to wonder how this will impact the conduct of senior managers dealing with issues around whistleblowing if they are opening themselves up to personal liability.
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