Sakai District Court Rules Dismissal of Whistleblower Nurse at Disability Facility Invalid

From NHK

July 30 2026

Sakai, Osaka Pref – A nurse who worked at a disability support facility in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, filed a lawsuit claiming it was unlawful for the facility to dismiss them after they made a public-interest whistleblower report about problems at the facility. The Sakai branch of the Osaka District Court ruled that the dismissal was invalid, finding that it was intended to remove the nurse from the workplace, and ordered the facility to pay unpaid wages and damages.

The nurse worked at Verde Sakai, a support center for people with severe motor and intellectual disabilities in Sakai City. In 2019, the nurse made a public-interest disclosure to the city alleging that another nurse had abused a service user. Following an investigation, the city determined that separate conduct at the facility constituted abuse.

Three years later, in 2022, the nurse made another whistleblower report concerning a different issue. The city did not substantiate the allegations during its investigation. After being placed on paid leave at home for six months, the nurse was dismissed.

The nurse, together with two fellow nurses, later filed suit, arguing that the dismissal amounted to unlawful retaliation for whistleblowing and seeking a declaration that the dismissal was invalid as well as compensation for emotional distress and other damages.

The facility argued that the dismissal had nothing to do with the whistleblower reports, maintaining that the nurse was fired because they failed to comply with work-related instructions.

In its ruling on July 30, Presiding Judge Masanori Yokota of the Sakai branch of the Osaka District Court found that both the dismissal and the period of home leave lacked reasonable grounds and were intended to exclude the nurse from the workplace. The court ruled that the actions constituted an abuse of rights and were therefore unlawful and invalid.

The court ordered the facility to pay the three plaintiffs a total of more than ¥20 million in unpaid wages, damages, and other compensation.

However, the court did not accept the plaintiffs’ argument that the dismissal was retaliatory under Japan’s public-interest whistleblower protections, stating that it could not infer that the dismissal was motivated by retaliation for the whistleblower reports.

One of the plaintiffs, nurse Ryusuke Asakura, said:

“The three of us fought this together, and somehow we made it through. I’m disappointed that the court did not recognize the dismissal as retaliation for making a public-interest disclosure.”