A California employer can’t retaliate against an employee for whistleblowing. A whistleblower is an individual (usually an employee) who discloses information that they reasonably believe demonstrates the company’s violation of law, gross mismanagement, or a significant and specific danger to public health or safety. California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) protects whistleblowers, but recently a Court of Appeal was asked to decide whether an employee can sue a supervisor personally.
In Chaudhry v. State of California (Sept. 28, 2026), a California Court of Appeal held that individual managers and supervisors aren’t personally liable for retaliation under Labor Code § 1102.5. The decision addresses an issue that California courts haven’t discussed previously under the statute’s current language.
Background
Chaudhry began working for the California Department of Corrections in 2007 as a dental assistant at a prison medical facility in Vacaville. In 2018, she complained to her supervisor and to Cal/OSHA about contaminated protective equipment and other safety issues. Management was aware that she’d complained.
Chaudhry alleged that management retaliated against her with a letter of instruction that was critical of her job performance, an unpaid suspension, two terminations, and attempts to make her work more difficult.
Chaudhry subsequently resigned and sued the State of California, the Department, and three of her supervisors. In her complaint, she asserted a claim for retaliation under Labor Code § 1102.5—California’s “whistleblower” statute. This section makes it unlawful for “an employer, or any person acting on behalf of the employer” to retaliate against an employee who’s disclosed what the employee has “reasonable cause to believe” constitutes a violation of state, federal, or local law or regulation.
The defendants filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, seeking to dismiss Chaudhry’s § 1102.5 retaliation claim as it related to her first termination and the alleged constructive discharge. They also sought to dismiss her Whistleblower Protection Act cause of action to the extent it relied on any events after November 2021. The trial court dismissed her constructive discharge cause of action in its entirely and also dismissed all of Chaudhry’s causes of action without leave to amend, and entered judgment accordingly.
The Court of Appeal’s Decision
On appeal, Chaudhry argued that on its face section 1102.5(b) imposes liability on individuals like her supervisors, since it prohibits retaliation by “any person acting on behalf of the employer.” She cited the definition of “person” in section 18, which applies unless the context requires otherwise, and stated that “person” means “any person, association, organization, partnership, business trust, limited liability company, or corporation.” She noted that section 1103, which is in the same chapter as section 1102.5, states that “an employer or any other person or entity that violates this chapter is guilty of a misdemeanor … .” The Court agreed that the language of section 1102.5(b) is susceptible of Chaudhry’s interpretation. However, consideration of the statute’s larger context undercut her position, Presiding Judge Tracie L. Brown wrote.
The judge explained that § 1104, contained in the same chapter as § 1102.5, remains unchanged from its enactment in 1937 and states, “In all prosecutions under this chapter, the employer is responsible for the acts of his managers, officers, agents, and employees.” Section 1105, also in the same chapter, states, “Nothing in this chapter shall prevent the injured employee from recovering damages from his employer for injury suffered through a violation of this chapter.” While these provisions don’t foreclose the possibility of managers, agents, or employees also being individually liable, they suggested that the Legislature focused on imposing liability on employers for actions by supervisors that violate § 1102.5, rather than the supervisors themselves. The judge found that the absence of any reference to persons other than employers in section 1102.6 suggests that “the Legislature intends for employees to be able to sue only employers, not individual supervisors, under section 1102.5.”
Moreover, to resolve the ambiguity, the Court of Appeal examined the California Supreme Court’s decisions in Reno v. Baird (1998) and Jones v. Lodge at Torrey Pines Partnership (2008). Those decisions held that supervisors can’t be personally liable for discrimination or retaliation under FEHA—even though FEHA’s retaliation provision, § 1102.5, applies to any “person.” Judge Brown reasoned:
Supervisors necessarily have to make the types of management and personnel decisions that may give rise to retaliation claims under section 1102.5(b), and subjecting supervisors to individual liability offers little additional recovery to plaintiffs while creating an in terrorem effect for supervisors and a conflict of interest between them and their employers. It would be remarkable for the Legislature to impose personal liability in section 1102.5(b) and create a departure from FEHA without mentioning these concerns. It would be equally unusual for the Legislature to try to use “any person” language to impose personal liability on supervisors after Jones found such language insufficiently clear and contrasted it with the explicit language in FEHA regarding individual liability for harassment. Imposing such liability without making any conforming changes to section 1102.6 would also be odd.
Nothing in section 1102.5’s legislative history indicates the Legislature intended to impose individual liability upon supervisors, Judge Brown wrote, even after the California Supreme Court held that language similar to that used in § 1102.5(b) didn’t create individual liability for retaliation under FEHA whereas other, more explicit language did create individual liability for harassment. Chaudhry v. State of California (California Court of Appeal, 1st Appellate District, 9/28/2026).
Bottom Line
Frequently, employees initiating legal action will name individual supervisors to apply greater pressure to settle or to defeat diversity jurisdiction so that the cases stay in state court. However, Chaudhry holds that plaintiffs aren’t allowed to sue individual managers or supervisors for retaliation under California Labor Code § 1102.5.
The California Court of Appeal found the statute’s “any person” language to be ambiguous and that the California Supreme Court’s reasoning rejecting supervisor liability for retaliation under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) likewise applied to § 1102.5. There’s nothing in the legislative history to indicate that the Legislature intended to impose individual liability on supervisors under that section.
For questions regarding this or other employment law matters, contact us at Eanet, PC.
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About the author
Danielle G. Eanet, Esq.
Danielle is a shareholder at Eanet, PC, a Los Angeles litigation boutique. She defends employers in discrimination, harassment, wage-and-hour, PAGA, and trade secrets matters in California state and federal court, and previously practiced at Littler Mendelson, the world's largest employment law firm. She co-authored the intellectual property chapter of The Littler Mendelson Guide to International Employment and Labor Law (LexisNexis) and is regularly quoted on California employment law developments.
Reviewed October 2026