Although there were a number of issues before the ET the Court of Appeal was only concerned with a single point arising in connection with the Appellant's disability discrimination claim. It was her case that the Respondent failed to make reasonable adjustments in accordance with the duty then contained in section 4A of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The Appellant lost her claim of disability discrimination at the ET, the ET saying that they considered that the Respondent had done all they could reasonably be expected to have done to find out about the true nature of the health problems the Claimant was experiencing by their referral to OH, their return to work meetings and discussions with her and by looking at the letters that the Claimant asked her GP to write to them and they could not reasonably be expected to have done more. On the facts known to the Respondent, it was not likely that the health problems and symptoms would extend to 12 months bringing the Claimant within the ambit of the DDA 1995. Furthermore many of the absences were not for the impairments which gave rise to disability, but the surprisingly high number of bouts of flu and debilitating colds, and very generalised references to stress and anxiety, which would not ordinarily lead an employer to think an employee is disabled. The Respondent was not assisted by the Claimant's attitude of confrontation and lack of co-operation with them and her refusal to allow the OH providers to contact her GP. The Appellant also lost her appeal to the EAT and she appealed to the Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal after first reminding itself that the issue for the ET was what the Respondent could reasonably have been expected to know. They had no difficulty understanding why the ET came to the conclusion that it did that the Respondent "did all they could reasonably be expected to have done to find out about the nature of the health problem that the Claimant was experiencing". Lord Justice Underhill said "This Court should be very slow, absent any explicit misdirection, to depart from the considered assessment of an experienced employment judge and two lay members, endorsed by the President of the EAT and two lay members".