Federal appellate courts have struggled recently over exactly when a corporate insider becomes a whistleblower who's entitled to the Dodd-Frank Act's protections against retaliation.

The U.S. Supreme Court's now jumping into the fray to resolve tension among the lower courts. The justices agreed Monday to take up the case Digital Realty Trust v. Somers from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

At issue is the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's interpretation of Dodd-Frank post-financial crisis reforms that define a whistleblower as someone who reports misconduct “to the commission.” The SEC has interpreted Dodd-Frank to extend protections to workers who only report alleged misconduct internally to company officials. The agency's position has not stopped corporations from seizing on those three words—“to the commission”—to argue that the whistleblower in any specific case isn't a whistleblower at all.