In a whistleblowing claim, what matters is when your employer punished you.
“WhistleblowingMaking a disclosure about wrongdoing in your workplace, such as a health and safety risk, a criminal act, or a miscarriage of justice. If the disclosure qualifies as protected, the law gives you signi... protection runs from the date your employer punished you, not the date you first raised the concern.”
In a whistleblowing claim, the clock runs from when your employer subjected you to detrimentAny action your employer takes that puts you at a disadvantage, short of dismissal. In a whistleblowing or discrimination context, being moved to a worse role, excluded from meetings, or given an unfa..., not from when you made your disclosure.
- Write down when you raised your concern and what changed in how you were treated afterwards. The connection between the two is what any claim turns on.
- A disclosure made years ago does not close the door. If the detriment happened recently, you may still have a live claim.
- Whistleblowing detriment claims have strict time limits. Get advice as soon as you suspect the two are connected.
The situation
An employee disclosed suspected tax fraud by his employer to the Inland Revenue, years before the whistleblowing protections in the Public Interest DisclosureA whistleblowing disclosure that qualifies for legal protection because it is made in the public interest, not purely for personal gain. The requirement to show a public interest element was introduce... Act 1998 existed. He was later dismissed by the same employer, after those protections came into force. The employer argued the dismissal fell outside the law because the original disclosure predated the Act.
What the court found
The Court of Session disagreed. What matters for jurisdiction is the date your employer subjects you to detriment, not the date you made the disclosure. Because the dismissal happened after the Act came into force, it did not matter that the disclosure itself came years earlier.
Miklaszewicz v Stolt Offshore Ltd | [2002] IRLR 344 | Court of Session | 2002