The claimant was dismissed in November 2021 and brought claims of disability discrimination and victimisation. At a preliminary hearing, the employment judge found the claimant had not established disability status, concluding his stress, anxiety and depression had neither a substantial nor long-term adverse effect on day-to-day activities. A separate hearing under r21 before a different employment judge dismissed the victimisation complaint, who found that although the claimant had performed a protected act and suffered four detriments, those detriments were caused by genuine performance concerns not the protected act.

Lord Fairley allowed the first appeal. The Tribunal had erred in finding there was no substantial adverse effect, having ignored the disability impact statement which described significant difficulties with basic daily activities, so the issue of disability status question was remitted to a freshly constituted tribunal. He dismissed second appeal as the tribunal had adequately considered the burden of proof, made legitimate findings on causation from contemporaneous documents, and its conclusions on the manager's genuine performance concerns were open for them to make so were not perverse.