The Claimant brought various claims against the Respondent. During the ET hearing, the EJ complained about the conduct of the Claimant's counsel, in particular the range of the complaints raised by the Claimant and their diffuse nature. He said that some of them were "spectacularly trivial", and he made a general point that "This kind of over-litigation is a real problem in our jurisdiction". The Claimant appealed on the basis of "apparent bias" on the part of the EJ.

The EAT dismissed the appeal. On analysing the facts and looking at what happened in context, the EAT decided that a fair-minded and informed observer would not have concluded that there was a real possibility that the EJ was biased against the Claimant.