If you work in Florida and you’ve ever opposed or refused to participate in unsafe or illegal conditions at your job, a new Florida Supreme Court ruling directly affects your legal protections. On May 28, 2026, the Florida Supreme Court issued its decision in Gessner v. Southern Co., No. SC2024-1835 (Fla. May 28, 2026), and it draws a clear and demanding line for employees who want to sue their employer for firing them after they blew the whistle.
A Little Background: Florida Is an “At-Will” State
Florida follows what’s called the “at-will” employment rule. That means, in most cases, your employer can fire you for any reason – or even no reason at all – and you have no legal recourse. The Florida Legislature carved out an exception in 1991 when it passed the Private Sector Whistle-blower’s Act. The law protects employees who speak up about their employer’s illegal activity from losing their jobs in retaliation.
Specifically, the law says that a private employer that employs 10 or more employees cannot fire or punish an employee because the employee objected to, or refused to take part in, any workplace activity or policy “which is in violation of a law, rule, or regulation.”
Simple enough, right? Not quite.
The Big Fight: What Does “In Violation of Law” Actually Mean?
For years, Florida’s courts could not agree on what an employee actually had to prove to win a whistleblower retaliation case.
One side, led by Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal in Aery v. Wallace Lincoln-Mercury, LLC, 118 So. 3d 904 (Fla. 4th DCA 2013), said employees only needed to show they had a good faith, reasonable belief that their employer was breaking the law. In other words, if you genuinely and reasonably thought something was illegal and said so, you were protected, even if it turned out not to actually be against the law.
The other side, which included Florida’s First, Second, and Fifth District Courts of Appeal, took a harder line. These courts said the employee must show the employer’s activity was an actual violation of the law, not just a suspected one.
What the Florida Supreme Court Decided
The Gessner case gave the Florida Supreme Court the chance to settle the debate once and for all. It sided with the stricter standard, while adding its own twist.
The Court rejected both extremes. It ruled:
- Employees do not need to show their employer was caught in the act of breaking the law, nor that any court or agency had already found a violation.
- But employees also cannot win just by showing they believed something was illegal.
Instead, the employee must prove that the employer’s conduct is, by definition, a violation of the law. Think of it this way: if your employer orders you to dump chemicals into a river, you do not need to wait until the dump actually happens or until the EPA issues a citation. You do, however, need to be able to point to an actual law that makes the dumping illegal.
Clint Gessner, a welder at a Gulf Power plant in Pensacola, lost his case under this standard. He raised several safety concerns to his supervisors over the years, but he could not connect those concerns to a specific law, rule, or regulation that the company was violating. Unfortunately, his belief, even if sincere, was not enough.
The Gessner ruling only affects one specific type of whistleblower protection, the kind where you personally object to or refuse to go along with something illegal at work. But Florida’s Whistle-blower’s Act actually protects workers in two other important ways:
- If you report your employer’s conduct to a government agency, or even just threaten to report it, you are protected. 448.102(1), Fla. Stat.
- If a government agency is already investigating your employer and you cooperate with that investigation, you are protected there too. 448.102(2), Fla. Stat.
The stricter standard from Gessner does not appear to apply to either of those situations, as the court primarily focused on an employee’s objection and refusal to participate. This is because when you report something to the government or help investigators, you are by nature acting on a suspicion. The law even uses the word “alleged” to describe the violation in that context. The whole point of reporting is to let someone else figure out whether a law was actually broken. Gessner did not change those protections. If you have concerns about illegal activity at your workplace, it is worth knowing that simply picking up the phone and reporting it to a government agency, or cooperating when investigators are investigating, may give you stronger legal protection than objecting internally to your boss.
What This Means for Florida Workers
Gessner leaves one important question unanswered: Does a whistleblower have to name the specific law, rule, or regulation their employer is breaking?
The Court never said so directly. But Gessner lost partly because he never tied his safety complaints to a specific legal requirement, and even when he pointed to a federal safety law (OSHA), he did it in passing without explaining how his employer actually violated those safety laws.
The takeaway is simple: do your homework before you speak up. A gut feeling that something is wrong probably will not cut it. The more you can point to a specific law your employer is breaking, and explain why, the better protected you will be. This does not mean you need to be a lawyer. But it does mean that documenting your concerns, referencing specific laws or regulations, and consulting with an employment attorney before or after raising concerns could make a significant difference if you ever end up in court.
The bottom line? Florida still protects workers who speak up, but the protection has limits. Know the law before you blow the whistle.