The claimant, a circuit judge, had raised two grievances; one concerning the actions of three other judges and one relating to the actions of court staff. Both complaints, investigated by two different routes, failed: the one investigated by the HMCTS for being out of time. The claimant issued processing in the ET relating to the handling of the grievances and the respondents applied for them to be struck out. The judge struck out the claims relating to the judges but declined to strike out those concerning the staff. The claimant appealed broadly on the grounds that it was not open to the judge to decide the struck out claims had no reasonable prospect of success.

In this judgment Swift J accepts the claimant’s argument at [50] that

“decisions that a claim has no reasonable prospect of success on its facts should be decisions more rare than common…… that is the clear tenor of the authorities…. However, that submission on its own, is not sufficient for his purpose: the strength attaching to it must be measured in the specifics of the case in hand."

In this case, the claims rested on undisputed events, that were apparently ordinary events that might occur in the course of any grievance process. No part of the Claimant’s case explained why those events should not be taken at face value so the decision to strike out was one reasonably open to the judge.