Council worker who objected to pronouns policy ordered to pay £12k in costs after losing employment tribunal

A council worker who protested against his local authority employer's pronouns policy has been ordered to pay £12,000 in costs after his claim of unfair dismissal was dismissed in the Employment Tribunal.

Jim Orwin worked for East Riding of Yorkshire Council as an IT officer. In 2022, the council invited its staff to consider adding pronouns to their email signature if they wished to do so.

Mr Orwin held gender critical views and took exception to the pronoun policy. He decided to add the words ‘XYchromosomeGuy/AdultHumanMale’ to his email footer.

In Orwin v East Riding of Yorkshire Council, the Tribunal heard that the council asked Mr Orwin to remove his email footer on four separate occasions, and made it clear that if he continued to ignore its management instructions, it would take disciplinary action against him.

Mr Orwin refused, was suspended and dismissed for gross misconduct due to insubordination.

In May this year, Mr Orwin took the council to tribunal, saying they had discriminated against his beliefs and that he had been unfairly dismissed.

At the hearing, he argued that his right to express his “precise gender identity” by way of his email signature was a “manifestation of his gender critical beliefs” and protected under Articles 9 (freedom of thought, conscious and religion) and 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights, and his dismissal amounted to “less favourable treatment” under the Equality Act 2010. 

Dismissing the case, Employment Judge Miller concluded: “The claimant [failed] to follow a reasonable management instruction. The instruction was reasonable because the email footer was inappropriate. It was mocking and derisory of people who self-identify their gender and its continued use would have made the respondent look like they condoned the claimant’s actions which were divisive and exclusionary and in direct opposition to the respondent’s adopted position that gender self-identification is acceptable.”

He added: “Had the claimant been willing to moderate the footer or engage with the respondent the claimant’s actions might not have amounted to gross misconduct. However, the fact that the claimant stated very clearly that the claimant would not remove the footer and would not comply with a management instruction indicated that the claimant had decided to no longer consider himself bound by the contract of employment.”

Following the hearing, the local authority made an application to recover costs, and an employment judge ruled that Mr Orwin’s tribunal claim was ‘vexatious’. He was ordered to pay £12,000.

According to the Mail Online, Mr Orwin said that four different employment judges dealt with the various stages of the tribunal process and that it was “never suggested” that his claim was vexatious.

He told the Mail: “Not one of the judges, nor the Council's legal team, so much as suggested that possibility. The word was never mentioned.

“The first suggestion that my claim might be considered vexatious was in the Council's recent costs application.”

A spokesperson for East Riding of Yorkshire Council said: “Costs are a usual consideration in legal proceedings. It was considered appropriate for the council to make an application to recover costs incurred at public expense in defending this claim and costs were subsequently awarded by the Employment Tribunal following this application.”

Lottie Winson