On Sept. 28, 2026, the California First District Court of Appeal held in Chaudhry v. State of California, ___ Cal.App.5th ___, 2026 WL 2903565 (2026), that a plaintiff cannot sue an individual manager or supervisor for retaliation under California Labor Code section 1102.5. The published opinion is the first California appellate decision to address the question, which federal courts had treated as unresolved under California law.

Background

The plaintiff alleged that she was retaliated against after reporting workplace safety issues to Cal-OSHA. She sued her former employer and three individual supervisors under section 1102.5, among other claims.

After the trial court granted judgment on the pleadings, the supervisors argued on appeal, as an alternative ground for affirming, that section 1102.5 does not impose individual liability. The court of appeal agreed and affirmed the judgment in their favor.

Why Section 1102.5 Does Not Reach Individual Managers

The statutory scheme is ambiguous

Section 1102.5(b) provides that “[a]n employer, or any person acting on behalf of the employer, shall not retaliate” against a whistleblower. The plaintiff argued that “any person” plainly includes supervisors, and the court agreed the text alone could bear that reading. But the surrounding provisions point the other way: section 1104 makes the employer responsible for the acts of its managers and agents, section 1105 preserves recovery of damages “from his employer,” and section 1102.6 gives only the employer the “legitimate, independent reasons” defense. The court saw no conceivable reason the Legislature would treat employers more leniently than individual supervisors.

The Legislature added the “any person” language in 2013 out of concern that employers and their attorneys were threatening to report workers to immigration authorities. The court explained that nothing in that history suggests an intent to make supervisors personally liable.

2008 California Supreme Court Ruling Controls by Analogy

In 2008, the California Supreme Court held that FEHA’s similarly worded retaliation provision does not reach individual supervisors. The Chaudhry court found most of that reasoning equally applicable: supervisors must make personnel decisions as part of their jobs, and individual liability would add little to plaintiffs’ recovery while chilling those decisions and creating conflicts between supervisors and employers. It would be “remarkable,” the court of appeal said, for the Legislature to depart from FEHA without mentioning these concerns.

What This Means for Employers

Employers now have published California authority supporting dismissal of section 1102.5 claims against supervisors and managers, which can narrow the case at the pleading stage, reduce defense costs, and remove a common source of settlement pressure.

In addition, federal courts had rejected fraudulent joinder arguments because no California court had resolved the question. Chaudhry closes that gap, giving employers a stronger basis to disregard nondiverse supervisor defendants and remove cases to federal court. 

Finally, because liability runs to the employer, supervisors can make legitimate personnel decisions without fear of personal exposure. Employers can reinforce that protection, and strengthen their own defenses, through consistent training and contemporaneous documentation of the business reasons for employment decisions.