Rice v Wicked Vision: The Arguments Before the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has now heard the appeal in Rice v Wicked Vision, and judgment has been reserved. This is the case that will finally decide a question which has divided the courts for years: in a whistleblowing claim, can an individual co-worker, manager or director be made personally liable in a claim? This article sets out, in plain terms, the competing legal arguments the Supreme Court has been asked to resolve.

We have written about this case before — once when the Court of Appeal handed down its judgment, and once when we explained why the case was going to the Supreme Court. Those articles told the story as a whole, whilst this one looks under the bonnet at the law itself, and at the arguments that our firm, and the other parties to the claim, submitted to the Supreme Court.

The Atkinson Rose LLP team with counsel inside the UK Supreme Court for the Rice v Wicked Vision whistleblowing appeal.

Atkinson Rose LLP acted for Wicked Vision in this case and instructed the team that argued the appeal. The Supreme Court is the highest court in the United Kingdom. It is the final court of appeal, and once it decides a point of law its ruling binds every court and tribunal below it. A case reaches it only rarely, and only where the legal question is of real public importance - which is why a decision here will settle this issue for employment tribunals across the country. The case involved various King's Counsel and the top employment practitioners in the Country along with attracting intervention and external funding.

Everything in this article is drawn from the written cases lodged with the Supreme Court by all sides and by the intervening charity. Those are public documents: the written cases of every party can be read on the Supreme Court's case page, and because of the public importance of the appeal the full hearing was live streamed and is available to watch here. Nothing in this article is confidential or privileged. It is an account of legal argument made in open court and available for anyone to read.

In Brief

Here are the issues in plain English, with fuller details found below under The Detailed Legal Analysis section:

A company, Wicked Vision Ltd, had a whistleblowing claim brought against them where the employee was asking the employment tribunal to also allow claims to be brought against individuals. The legal question this case raises is whether someone bringing a whistleblowing claim can not only bring claims against the company that employed them, but also a claim against an individual for example a co-worker, manager or director — making that individual personally liable for any compensation award out of their own pocket?

The burden of proof to bring a claim against an individual is also lower, which means that a claimant can sometimes lose a case against the employer but win against a co-worker. We have seen some employers refuse to assist their own staff once these claims had been brought, leaving those individuals to fund their own legal defences. Many were left personally liable for tribunal awards long after they had left the companies they had worked for. We wanted to change the state of the current law.

For years the employment tribunals had been bound to add individuals to claims due to an earlier precedent set in the case of Osipov, so we took the issue to the Supreme Court in an effort to change the law. The court heard three different views: Our argument, which says there is only a single route (a claim against the company), another that says an individual can also be pursued, and one that says the routes should run side by side. Judgment has been reserved, meaning it will follow in a few months. At the close of the hearing, one of the Justices described the case as "a problem as difficult as it is important" — a fair summary of why it has taken so long, and so many courts, to resolve.

Why it matters to you: if you are an employee, this decides what you can claim, and against whom, if you are ever dismissed for raising concerns. If you are a manager, director or co-worker, it decides whether a decision you take for your employer can put your own savings at risk. The rest of this article explains each position in more detail with the passages above detailing the essentials.

The Three Positions at a Glance

The Supreme Court was asked to choose between three readings of the key provision, section 47B(2) of the Employment Rights Act 1996:

Our position (we acted for the appellant employer): section 47B(2) means a dismissed employee has one route only — a claim against the employer. No personal claim against the individual co-worker, manager or director.

The respondents (the dismissed employees): section 47B(2) is narrower than that. The co-worker route survives, individuals can be personally liable.

The intervener (the charity Protect): section 47B(2) is only a boundary marker keeping two sets of rules tidy. It does not shut any door; the routes run in parallel.

The sections that follow explain how the law is built, what the earlier Osipov case decided, and each of the three positions in detail.

The Question in a Single Sentence

When a whistleblower is dismissed, has Parliament given them one route to bring a claim, or more than one — and can a claim be brought not just against the company, but against an individual? Everything else flows from that question.

The Detailed Legal Analysis

This part of the article is the full picture to provide more detail as to the specific legal arguments put forward and is written for those who wish for more detail, including anyone affected directly, along with practitioners and students.

At its heart, this case turns on the meaning of one provision: section 47B(2) of the Employment Rights Act 1996. That provision is the hinge between two different parts of the Act — the unfair dismissal regime (Part X) and the separate regime protecting workers from "detriment" (Part V). The Supreme Court has been asked to decide how widely section 47B(2) reaches, and in particular whether it prevents a dismissed whistleblower from bringing a claim against an individual co-worker, manager or director rather than only against the employer. The sections below explain how that framework fits together, what the earlier Osipov case decided, and the three competing arguments the Court heard. Open whichever you would like to read.

How the Law is Built

To follow the arguments, you need a feel for two parts of the Employment Rights Act 1996 — the main Act that contains most of the rights employees rely upon every day.

Part X is the unfair dismissal regime. If you are an employee and you are dismissed, Part X is where you would ordinarily bring your claim. Where a dismissal is because you blew the whistle, section 103A makes that dismissal "automatically unfair." A Part X claim can only be brought against an employer — that is, the company that employs you.

Part V is different. It protects workers from being subjected to a "detriment" — a disadvantage short of dismissal. A detriment might be a demotion, a denial of promotion, a removed bonus, exclusion from meetings, or hostility from colleagues. The whistleblowing detriment provision is section 47B.

For most of the Act's life, those two Parts ran in parallel but were understood not to overlap: Part V dealt with everything short of dismissal; Part X dealt with dismissal itself. The hinge between them, for whistleblowing, is section 47B(2). It says section 47B "does not apply" where the worker is an employee and the detriment "amounts to dismissal (within the meaning of Part X)."

Those last words in brackets — within the meaning of Part X — turned out to be among the most fought-over words in the case.

The Complication: the 2013 Amendments

Before 2013, section 47B made only the employer liable. A whistleblower had no claim against a colleague — and, as the Court of Appeal confirmed in Fecitt v NHS Manchester in 2011, no claim against the employer for the colleague's conduct either. There was a gap in the protection.

Parliament closed that gap by way of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, which inserted new subsections into section 47B. Their effect was twofold: an individual co-worker can now be held personally liable for whistleblowing claims (section 47B(1A)), and the employer is made liable for that co-worker's conduct (section 47B(1B)).

Here is the heart of the dispute. When Parliament added those co-worker provisions in 2013, it left section 47B(2) — the hinge between Part V and Part X — completely untouched. Every party agrees on that fact. They disagree, profoundly, about what it means.

One point of background helps here. The Supreme Court heard two appeals together, because both raise the same question of law: our case, Rice v Wicked Vision (UKSC/2026/0005), and a second case, Barton Turns Developments v Treadwell (UKSC/2026/0008). Joining appeals in this way is common where a single legal question affects more than one case — it lets the Court settle the point once, for everyone. For simplicity this article speaks of "the case," but both appeals are being decided together.

This case is unusual in that there are not two positions before the Court, but three. But before turning to them, it is worth understanding the earlier case that everything in this appeal is measured against: Osipov.

The Osipov Decision: the Precedent at the Centre of This Case

Almost every argument in this appeal is, in one way or another, an argument about whether an earlier case called Osipov was correctly decided. It is worth setting out properly.

Osipov concerned a whistleblower who was dismissed and who wanted to bring a claim against the individuals who had brought the dismissal about — two company directors — and to hold them personally liable, rather than the company. That put the central question squarely in issue: could individuals be personally liable, under the section 47B detriment route, for a dismissal?

Like all employment claims of this kind, Osipov began in the Employment Tribunal. It is the two later stages, however — the appeals — that produced the reasoning which matters to the present case, and each is worth setting out.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal stage. On appeal, the case reached the Employment Appeal Tribunal, where the judgment was given by Mrs Justice Simler, then President of the Employment Appeal Tribunal. Her reasoning has proved highly influential. She concluded that section 47B(2) did not exclude the co-worker provisions in dismissal cases. A central plank of her reasoning was that section 47B(2) "does not seek to exclude all claims for detriment amounting to dismissal as it could have done" — Parliament had deliberately chosen the narrower wording "within the meaning of Part X." She also reasoned that it would make little sense to make co-workers personally liable for lesser detriments, such as a demotion, while relieving them of liability for the most serious detriment of all, the loss of the job itself.

The Court of Appeal stage. The case then went to the Court of Appeal, where the lead judgment was given by Lord Justice Underhill. The Court of Appeal upheld the result: section 47B(2) did not bar a co-worker dismissal-detriment claim, and the individuals could be personally liable. That decision — Timis v Osipov [2018] EWCA Civ 2321 — became the binding precedent on the point.

Following this decision, our firm was approached by a number of employees who had claims being brought against them as individuals. This was not limited to directors; it included co-workers whose role was simply to communicate decisions to other employees. As mentioned above, the burden of proof to bring a claim against an individual was also lower, which meant that a claimant could sometimes lose a case against the employer but win against a co-worker. We also saw, at first hand, some employers refuse to assist their own staff once these claims had been brought, leaving those individuals to fund their own legal defences. Many were left personally liable for tribunal awards long after they had left the companies they had worked for.

We wanted to challenge that state of affairs — but the employment tribunals and the Court of Appeal are bound by the Osipov decision. The Court of Appeal in the Wicked Vision case considered itself bound by Osipov even though it disagreed with the reasoning, which is precisely how the present appeal came to reach the Supreme Court. And there is a notable feature of the panel hearing it: Lady Simler, who as Mrs Justice Simler gave the original Employment Appeal Tribunal judgment in Osipov, sits among the Justices of the Supreme Court now asked to decide whether that line of authority should stand.

With that background in place, the three competing positions can be set out.

Position One — Our Position: One Route Only

We instructed Nadia Motraghi KC, Rad Kohanzad and Daisy van den Berg, who argued that an employee dismissed for whistleblowing has one route only: an unfair dismissal claim under Part X. Such an employee cannot also bring a dismissal claim dressed up as a "detriment" under Part V, whether against the employer or against an individual co-worker. The argument runs along several lines.

Parliament has been consistent for nearly thirty years. Part V of the Act contains fourteen separate "detriment" sections. Thirteen of them carry materially identical wording switching the section off where the worker is an employee and the detriment amounts to dismissal; the fourteenth achieves the same result another way. This, we argued, is a deliberate and consistent architecture: throughout the life of the Act, an employee complaining about a dismissal has been routed to Part X, not Part V. The pattern even reappears in the Employment Rights Act 2025.

The words mean what they say. Section 47B(2) states that "this section does not apply" — not "subsection (1) does not apply," but the whole section. On the ordinary meaning of the words, when an employee's complaint is in substance about dismissal, the entire section 47B is switched off, including the 2013 co-worker provisions. If Parliament had wanted those new provisions to survive that switch, it could have said so in 2013. It did not.

A dismissal is a dismissal, whoever delivers it. A company can only act through people. We argued that there is no real distinction between a dismissal "by the employer" and a dismissal carried out by a manager on the employer's behalf — and that section 47B(2) turns on what the complaint amounts to in substance. If you are complaining about losing your job, that is a dismissal, whatever label is attached to the claim.

The compensation scheme supports our reading. This is one of the more technical points. Each time Parliament has allowed a non-employee worker to claim under Part V for the ending of their engagement, it has also enacted a matching cap so the worker cannot recover more than an employee would under Part X. There is no equivalent cap for an employee claiming dismissal as a detriment. Our explanation is that Parliament never enacted the cap because it never intended employees to be in that position at all.

A whistleblower's rights should not depend on who employs them. On the rival reading, an employee of a company could pursue the individual manager who dismissed them, but an employee of a sole trader could not, because the dismissing person and the employer are the same legal person. We argued that employment rights should not turn on the legal structure of the business.

There is also a narrower, more technical argument about whether the Court of Appeal was strictly bound by the earlier Osipov decision at all. That is a lawyers' argument about how binding precedent works, and we leave it to one side here.

Position Two — The Respondents: Two Routes, by Design

The dismissed employees — Mr Rice in our case, and Miss Treadwell in the joined Barton Turns appeal — argue the opposite, and their case deserves to be set out with equal care. Mr Rice is represented by Adam Solomon KC, Chris Milsom and Tamsin Sandiford; Miss Treadwell by Jeffrey Jupp KC and Chris Canning. They say the 2013 co-worker provisions do survive section 47B(2), so an employee can bring a dismissal-related claim against a culpable individual. Their case has a clear structure.

Section 47B(2) only bites when two conditions are met. This is the centrepiece of the employees' argument. They say section 47B(2) switches the section off only where, first, the claim is about the employer's own act of dismissal — its primary liability — and, second, that dismissal is one "within the meaning of Part X," meaning the whistleblowing was the sole or principal reason for it. If either condition is missing, section 47B(2) is not triggered and the Part V route remains open.

The bracketed words are deliberate and limiting. If Parliament had meant to exclude every dismissal, the respondents argue, it would have said "dismissal" — or "dismissal within the meaning of section 95." Instead it said "within the meaning of Part X." Those words must do work. They limit the exclusion to dismissals that are actually actionable under Part X — that is, sole-or-principal-reason cases. A dismissal in which whistleblowing was only one reason among several is not a dismissal "within the meaning of Part X" at all, so the gateway in section 47B(2) never closes.

The co-worker provisions are unique, and were enacted for a reason. The 2013 amendments are the only place in the whole Act where an individual co-worker is made personally liable. They exist to fix the specific gap exposed in Fecitt. To read section 47B(2) as quietly switching them off in dismissal cases would gut the amendments in exactly the cases that matter most.

Primary liability and vicarious liability are genuinely different things. The respondents draw a careful distinction. A claim against a co-worker under section 47B(1A) is a claim about the co-worker's wrongdoing. Section 47B(1B) makes the employer responsible for that wrongdoing — but, they argue, that is vicarious liability, a secondary responsibility for someone else's act. It does not transform the co-worker's act into the employer's own act of dismissal. And a company, they note — citing Salomon v Salomon — is always a separate legal person from the individuals who run it.

The opposing reading produces absurd results. This is the core of the employees' case, and it is forcefully made. On the construction we advanced:

• A manager who demotes a whistleblower can be personally liable. The same manager who dismisses the same whistleblower cannot. The more serious the act, the lighter the consequence — which, the respondents say, inverts the whole deterrent purpose of personal liability.

• A worker dismissed for mixed reasons keeps a remedy. An employee dismissed in identical circumstances, by the same manager, on the same day, loses it — even though employee status is meant to carry more protection, not less.

• Where the employer is insolvent — which is what had happened in Osipov itself — a claim against the company is worth nothing, and barring the claim against the individuals who actually carried out the victimisation leaves the whistleblower with no real remedy at all.

The respondents also argue that when Parliament amended this area again in the Employment Rights Act 2025, it did not "correct" the Osipov interpretation — and Parliament is presumed to legislate knowing the current state of the law.

It is worth noting how much of this case rests on the reasoning first set out by Simler P in the Employment Appeal Tribunal in Osipov. The "two conditions" reading of section 47B(2), the emphasis on the deliberately narrow words "within the meaning of Part X," and the point that it would be irrational to spare a manager liability for the most serious detriment while imposing it for lesser ones — each of these traces back to her judgment, and the respondents adopt and build on it throughout their case.

Position Three — The Intervener: Section 47B(2) as a Mere Boundary

The case also features an intervener: Protect, the whistleblowing charity formerly known as Public Concern at Work, represented by Schona Jolly KC, Dee Masters and Imogen Brown. An intervener is not a party to the dispute; it is permitted to assist the Court because it has a particular expertise or perspective. Protect's contribution is genuinely distinctive — it offers the Court a third reading of section 47B(2) that neither side advanced.

Protect's starting point: the words are not plain at all. Where we argued that section 47B(2) has one obvious meaning, Protect argues the opposite — that the provision is genuinely ambiguous, and sets out a list of different ways its wording could sensibly be read. If there is no single plain meaning, Protect says, the Court must choose the reading that best fits the purpose of the legislation.

That purpose, Protect says, is the public good. Whistleblowing law is not only about protecting individuals; it protects everyone, by encouraging the people best placed to spot wrongdoing — often employees deep inside an organisation — to speak up. Protect points to disasters and scandals that public inquiries found had been foreseen by staff who felt unable to raise the alarm. A construction that leaves dismissed whistleblowers under-protected, it argues, works against that public purpose.

Protect's proposed reading: a boundary, not a barrier. Protect invites the Court to treat section 47B(2) as doing one modest job — marking the boundary between Part V and Part X so that their separate rules do not bleed into one another — rather than extinguishing the Part V route for dismissed employees. On this reading, an employee could pursue claims under section 98, section 103A and section 47B in parallel. Protect stresses this would not allow double recovery: a claimant who succeeds on more than one route still cannot be compensated twice for the same loss.

Why the same words might be read differently here. Protect anticipates the obvious objection — that section 47B(2)'s wording is echoed in other parts of the Act, so reading it generously here might unsettle those other provisions. Its answer is that there is no rigid rule that identical words must always carry an identical meaning, only a presumption, and that the unique public importance of whistleblowing, and the unique 2013 amendments to section 47B, justify reading this provision on its own terms.

Protect's practical illustration is worth keeping in mind: imagine an employee who is disruptive at work, then makes a protected disclosure about fraud, and is dismissed. If the disruption is the principal reason, the unfair dismissal claim fails — even though the whistleblowing genuinely influenced the decision. On Protect's reading, the section 47B route would still be available, so the influence of the whistleblowing would not simply drop out of the picture.

Why the Courts Are So Divided

It is worth pausing on how genuinely difficult this is, because the judicial history is striking. The Employment Tribunal went one way. The Employment Appeal Tribunal went the other. The Court of Appeal then agreed with our reading of the statute — and still ruled for the employees, because it considered itself bound by the earlier decision in Osipov. As Lady Justice Laing put it, had the Court been free to depart from Osipov, "we would have done so, as we respectfully disagree with its interpretation of the legislation."

That is the rare situation that brings a case to the Supreme Court: a Court of Appeal deciding an appeal in a way that conflicts with its own view of the law, and saying openly that only the Supreme Court, or Parliament, can resolve it. It is no surprise that, as noted above, one of the Justices called it a problem as difficult as it is important — the judicial history shows both halves of that description to be accurate.

Why the Causation Threshold Matters So Much

One thread runs through every version of this dispute, and it is worth isolating because it is where the case touches real lives. The two routes apply different tests of causation.

An unfair dismissal claim under section 103A succeeds only if the protected disclosure was the sole or principal reason for the dismissal. A detriment claim under section 47B succeeds if the protected disclosure was a material influence — more than trivial — on the treatment. That is a significantly lower bar.

Most real dismissals are not single-reason events. They are mixed. An employer may have had genuine concerns about performance and been influenced by the fact that the employee raised an awkward disclosure. In that common situation, the unfair dismissal route can fail while the detriment route would succeed. Which route the law leaves open is therefore not a technicality — it can be the difference between a remedy and nothing.

What the Outcome Will Mean

The Supreme Court has reserved its judgment, which will follow after the Justices have deliberated — this may be for some months. When it comes, it will settle the following.

For whistleblowers and employees: clarification, when you are dismissed for raising concerns, to whom you can pursue and what you must prove to do so.

For managers, directors and co-workers: whether a decision taken on behalf of your employer can expose your personal finances to a claim. For staff who make or carry out difficult decisions as part of their role, this is not an insignificant issue.

For employers and businesses: clarity on the scope of liability, on insurance, and on exposure — a clarity that has been missing for years.

A Word on Where We Stand

Atkinson Rose LLP are employment law specialists, and we were drawn into this litigation because we are increasingly approached by people facing personal claims for decisions they had taken in the course of their employment. They are not just directors of companies but are individual employees, whose own homes and savings are exposed because of a decision they had carried out for someone else. Current tribunal waiting times can run to between two and five years, so many of these individuals carry the weight of this litigation for years — often into new roles, and often without the support of the employers whose instructions they had been following.

Standing up for fairness in employment law means standing up for the people caught in it: an employee treated badly for telling the truth, or an individual pursued personally for something done on a company's behalf. Both can be unjust. The Government is not prepared to amend the law and we were unhappy with the current state of it, so we have taken this step to try to change it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Supreme Court, and why does this case being there matter? The Supreme Court is the highest court in the United Kingdom — the final stage of appeal, above the Court of Appeal. It hears only a small number of cases each year, and takes them only where the legal question is genuinely unsettled and of wider public importance. Crucially, its decisions are binding: once the Supreme Court rules on the meaning of a piece of legislation, every employment tribunal and lower court in the country must follow that interpretation. That is why the outcome of this case matters well beyond the two employers and two employees involved — it will set a precedent in the law for everyone moving forward.

What is a "protected disclosure"? It is the legal term for blowing the whistle: a worker revealing information they reasonably believe shows wrongdoing — a criminal offence, a danger to health and safety, a breach of a legal obligation, and similar — where they reasonably believe the disclosure is in the public interest.

What is the difference between a "detriment" claim and an "unfair dismissal" claim? An unfair dismissal claim (Part X of the Employment Rights Act) challenges the loss of your job. A detriment claim (Part V) challenges a disadvantage short of dismissal which can be a demotion, lost pay, exclusion, hostility. The two regimes have different rules on who can be sued, what must be proved, and what compensation is available.

Why does the "causation test" keep coming up? Because the two routes set the bar in different places. Unfair dismissal requires whistleblowing to be the sole or principal reason for the dismissal. A detriment claim requires only that it was a material — more than trivial — influence. Most dismissals happen for a mix of reasons, so the test that applies can decide whether a claim succeeds at all.

Why does it matter whether a manager can be sued personally? Because it determines whether an individual's own money is at risk. If only the employer can be liable, claims are met by the company. If individuals can be personally liable, a manager, director or co-worker can face a claim against their personal assets — which matters especially where the employer has become insolvent.

What did the Court of Appeal actually decide? It agreed with the interpretation of the legislation advanced by us — but held that it was bound by the earlier decision in Osipov to rule the other way. It granted permission to appeal to the Supreme Court precisely so the conflict could be resolved.

What was the Osipov case? Timis v Osipov was an earlier case in which a whistleblower was dismissed and the higher courts held that an individual could be personally liable for a whistleblower's dismissal under the section 47B detriment route. That decision is the precedent which we are asking the Supreme Court to reconsider.

What is an "intervener," and why is a charity involved? An intervener is not a party to the dispute but is permitted by the Court to provide a perspective that may assist it. Here the whistleblowing charity Protect intervened and put forward its own distinct reading of the legislation, drawing on its experience of how whistleblowing protection works in practice.

When will the Supreme Court give judgment? The Court has reserved judgment, meaning it will be delivered later, after the Justices deliberate. In a case of this complexity that usually takes some months. We will publish an update here as soon as it is handed down.

Did Atkinson Rose LLP act in this case? Yes. Atkinson Rose LLP acted for Wicked Vision Limited and instructed counsel involved — Nadia Motraghi KC, Rad Kohanzad and Daisy van den Berg.

Can I read the arguments myself? Yes. The case is entirely public. The written cases lodged

by every party can be read on the Supreme Court's case page, and the full hearing — which

was live streamed — is available to watch here. The case reference is UKSC/2026/0005.

I think I have a whistleblowing or unfair dismissal issue. What should I do? Seek advice early. Employment tribunal claims carry strict time limits — often three months less one day from the act complained of. We offer a free, no-obligation assessment of your situation with a qualified employment lawyer. Substantial additional remedies are available for those who bring a claim within a week of a dismissal so early action is key.

Article prepared on 28th May 2026.

Atkinson Rose LLP is a specialist employment law firm. If you would like to talk through a situation of your own — whether you are an employee who has been treated unfairly, an individual facing a claim arising from your work, or an employer requiring specialist assistance — you can reach us through our website, by email at info@atkinson-rose.co.uk, or by phone on 0333 444 5678. A qualified lawyer will be in touch.

This article is for general information and does not constitute legal advice. It summarises the case from the public written submissions lodged with the Supreme Court. For advice on your own circumstances, please contact us.