Who to name in your claim: the company, the manager, or both?

When you fill in your ET1 claim form, you name a "respondent" — the person or organisation you are claiming against. Most people name only their employer. Sometimes that is right. But in discrimination cases especially, naming the individual who wronged you as well can be decisive — and in one common situation, failing to name them can sink your claim entirely.

1. The employer: vicariously liable for its staff

Under section 109 of the Equality Act 2010, an employer is legally responsible for discrimination, harassment, or victimisation committed by its employees "in the course of employment" — whether or not the employer knew about it or approved of it.

This is why the employer is almost always the main respondent: it is the one with the money to pay compensation, and it cannot escape by pointing at a rogue manager.

2. The individual: personally liable for what they did

Under section 110, the person who actually discriminated against you — the manager, colleague, or HR adviser — is personally liable for their own actions and can be named as a respondent in their own right.

Naming the individual is not just symbolic. It puts their personal conduct under the spotlight, it prevents them from hiding behind the company, and it protects you in the situations below where the employer might otherwise escape.

3. Trap one: the "tainted information" problem

This is the most dangerous trap in discrimination claims, created by the Court of Appeal in CLFIS (UK) Ltd v Reynolds [2015].

The scenario: a line manager who dislikes you feeds false or biased information to a senior director. The director — who is genuinely innocent and knows nothing of the bias — relies on those reports and dismisses you.

The trap: if you only sue the employer for the dismissal, you lose. Because the decision-maker was innocent, the dismissal itself was not discriminatory — the law treats the dismissal as separate from the poisoned information that caused it.

The solution:

• Name the line manager as an individual respondent.
• Claim against them for the detriment of supplying the biased information (a section 39 detriment), not just the dismissal.
• Argue that the dismissal and all your financial losses flowed directly from that detriment.

The courts have protected claimants who could not realistically have known who the back-room manipulator was (Metropolitan Police Commissioner v Denby) — but the safest course is always to name the individual whose conduct you suspect.

One important exception: in whistleblowing dismissal claims, the Supreme Court ruled the other way. In Royal Mail Ltd v Jhuti [2019], a manager's hidden motive for getting a whistleblower dismissed could be attributed to the employer, making the dismissal itself automatically unfair. The tainted-information trap applies to discrimination claims, not to automatic unfair dismissal for whistleblowing.

4. Trap two: the "we had reasonable steps" defence

Under section 109(4), an employer escapes vicarious liability completely if it proves it took all reasonable steps to prevent the discrimination. In practice this defence rarely succeeds — but you defeat it by demanding evidence, in writing, on three questions:

• Were the policies living documents? A dusty equal opportunities policy that was never updated, circulated, or enforced counts for little. Ask when it was last reviewed and how staff were told about it.
• Was there real training — for everyone? Training must cover front-line staff and managers, not just sit in an induction pack.
• Did the training actually work? Tribunals ask whether it was effective in practice, not just delivered. "Banter" continuing openly after training suggests it was not.

If the answer to any question is no, the defence fails and the employer is liable. Even if the defence succeeds, the individual wrongdoer remains personally liable — another reason to name both.

5. The "HR told me to" shield

Under section 110(3), an individual manager has a complete defence if they reasonably relied on their employer's statement that what they were instructed to do was lawful — typically, a manager who followed HR's instructions in good faith.

Two consequences follow. First, the shield only protects the individual — the employer remains fully liable. Second, if the manager raises this defence, you can write offering to drop the individual from the claim in exchange for the employer formally accepting 100% vicarious liability. That simplifies your case while costing you nothing.

6. The people behind the scenes

Liability reaches further than the person who took the final decision:

• Instructing or inducing (section 111): a director who tells a manager to "find a reason" to dismiss a pregnant employee is personally liable, alongside the company.
• Knowingly aiding (section 112): an HR adviser or consultant who helps orchestrate a sham redundancy to remove a disabled employee can be named as an individual respondent for knowingly aiding the discrimination.

7. Your situation, translated into a claim

Common scenarios and how they should be framed — including who to name and the mistake to avoid: