On December 12, 2025, a Scottish employment tribunal judgment triggered a storm of controversy, legal debate, and public confusion, as questions mounted over both its substance and its surprisingly error-ridden form. The case, brought by veteran nurse Sandie Peggie against NHS Fife, centered on workplace rights, gender identity, and the interpretation of the Equality Act 2010—a legal battleground that has grown only more fractious in the UK’s ongoing discourse on sex and gender.
Presided over by Employment Judge Sandy Kemp, the tribunal’s 312-page ruling found that Peggie had been harassed by NHS Fife after she objected to sharing a changing room with a transgender colleague, Dr. Beth Upton, at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy on Christmas Eve 2023. However, the tribunal dismissed Peggie’s other claims of discrimination, indirect discrimination, and victimisation. The hearings themselves had unfolded earlier in 2025, with testimony and argument presented in Dundee in February and July.
But it was not only the legal findings that drew attention. As legal experts and interested parties combed through the lengthy judgment, they uncovered a litany of misquotes, errors, and what some described as “phantom” citations—statements attributed to other court decisions that, upon review, simply didn’t exist or had been altered in meaning and context. At paragraph 791, for example, Kemp asserted that the Employment Appeal Tribunal in Forstater v CDG Europe and others had emphasized, “It is important to bear in mind that the [Equality Act 2010] does not create a hierarchy of protected characteristics.” Yet, as the BBC and legal commentator Maya Forstater herself pointed out, this line is nowhere to be found in the original Forstater judgment. “This 'quote' from my judgment doesn’t come from my judgment. It is completely made up,” Forstater said, expressing both incredulity and frustration.
The errors did not end there. Kemp included a lengthy quote from Lee v Ashers Baking Co Ltd [2018] UKSC 49 that does not appear in that Supreme Court decision. He also misquoted the landmark ruling in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers, deleting the word “trans” and omitting crucial qualifying language, thereby shifting the meaning of the passage. According to RollOnFriday, Scottish advocate Jonathan Brown remarked, “This seems like the sort of thing that you probably shouldn’t do in a very high profile judgment that you would expect to be subject to intensive scrutiny and which was quite likely to be appealed.”
Other instances of creative quoting were found throughout the judgment. In paragraph 579, Kemp attributed a statement to Lady Hale in R (C) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2017] UKSC 72, but spliced together lines from different parts of the judgment, distorting the original context. At paragraph 454, a supposed quote from Games v University of Kent UKEAT/0524/13 was actually a summary, not a direct citation. The pattern continued with references to the European Court of Human Rights cases and domestic rulings, sometimes quoting from summaries or lower-tier decisions rather than the final, authoritative judgments.
Perhaps most strikingly, the judgment misdefined key terms. Kemp wrote, “The Tribunal will use the terms 'trans woman' being a person assigned male by sex at birth... and 'trans man' being a person assigned as male by sex at birth,” which, as legal analysts noted, would incorrectly classify both transwomen and transmen as biological males. In another gaffe, Kemp referred to the gender critical group 'Not All Gays' as 'Not for Gays', further fueling speculation about the rigor—or lack thereof—behind the drafting process.
The fallout was swift. On December 11, 2025, the tribunal issued a certificate of correction, replacing at least one erroneous paragraph and excusing the “phantom quote” as a clerical error. However, as one equalities lawyer told RollOnFriday, more corrections might be needed to sort out what they described as a “dog’s dinner.” The cumulative effect of these mistakes prompted some to wonder aloud whether parts of the judgment had been outsourced to AI tools like ChatGPT. While the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary declined to comment on the matter, the speculation highlighted growing anxieties about the use of artificial intelligence in sensitive legal contexts.
Beyond the textual blunders, the ruling’s substance has also come under heavy fire. Legal expert Michael Foran, an associate professor at Oxford University’s Faculty of Law, argued that the tribunal had failed to properly take into account the Supreme Court’s April 2025 decision in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers. That decision clarified that the legal definitions of “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex, not gender identity—a distinction with far-reaching implications for policies in workplaces, schools, and public life.
Foran told The Scotsman, “I don’t think this decision has properly taken into account the Supreme Court judgment. What the employment tribunal basically says is that you can’t have blanket rules. It says that you have to do this case-by-case assessment. The Supreme Court says one of the reasons why sex has to mean biological sex is so that you can have blanket rules. So they’re just incompatible. They’re saying contradictory things.”
He warned that the tribunal’s approach had created “a recipe for confusion,” with campaigners who disagree with the Supreme Court now citing the tribunal ruling to challenge its clarity. The confusion is not merely academic: organizations such as the Women’s Institute and Girl Guiding Association have already changed their policies in light of the Supreme Court’s decision, based on independent legal advice. Others, Foran noted, are hesitant—either because they lack resources, fear controversy, or simply disagree with the legal position established in April.
The legal uncertainty has left many institutions in a holding pattern, waiting for guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). Foran emphasized that the EHRC has stated organizations should not wait for a formal code to be approved by Parliament before updating their policies. “A major Supreme Court decision has clarified the law in a particular area,” he said, underscoring the urgency for compliance.
Amid the confusion, Sandie Peggie herself has announced plans to appeal the tribunal’s decision, with the support of barrister Ben Cooper KC. Foran suggested that a more senior court, possibly Scotland’s Court of Session, may need to review the tribunal’s reasoning to provide a definitive, authoritative application of the Supreme Court’s precedent. “I think there’s a lot that warrants a more senior court looking at the reasoning and looking at those issues,” he said, adding that only a higher court could settle the contradictions now at play.
As the dust settles, the case has become a touchstone for broader debates about legal precision, the risks of technological shortcuts, and the ongoing struggle to reconcile competing rights in a rapidly evolving social landscape. Whether through further corrections, appeals, or new guidance, the repercussions of Judge Kemp’s judgment are certain to echo far beyond the walls of the Dundee tribunal.
