Solicitor Tess Gill and journalist Anna Coote instigated legal action against El Vino at the Mayor's and City of London Court in 1981.

The judges, Lord Justices Edward Eveleigh, Hugh Griffiths and Sir Roger Ormrod, found in favour of Gill and Coote.

They noted that the policy denied women a choice of where to be served and prevented them from mixing with men in the bar where they might pick up gossip from other journalists and lawyers.

El Vino's owner Frank Bower, was known to have conservative views about women in the bar and also imposed a strict dress code of jacket, shirt and tie for male customers.

[4] In summer 1970 a group of female journalists had walked into the bar and demanded to be served but they were ejected and the protest mocked by some men in the newspaper industry as "a storm in a sherry glass".

Morning Star photographer Sheila Gray tried to get served at the bar on the day the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 came into force on 29 December 1975.

[1] She was refused and brought a case against El Vino at the Westminster County Court, supported by the Equal Opportunities Commission, a statutory body set up by the act and required, under section 75 of it, to provide legal advice to complainants.

Solicitor Tess Gill and journalist Anna Coote were selected as plaintiffs as representative of the two main professions that used the bar.

The men successfully ordered drinks but when the women attempted to do the same, the bar tender refused to serve them and told them to sit in the back room.

Following a one-hour hearing Ranking refused the injunction, noting that a civil case could be brought in a few months, and that wait would not cause any new harm to women, given that the ban had been in place for decades.

[7] A formal civil case was brought against El Vino under article 29 of the Sex Discrimination Act concerning "less favourable treatment in the provision of services to women".

[5] Ranking stated that he did not believe that parliament intended for every occurrence of sexual discrimination to be brought before the courts and considered that a reasonable person would not find the El Vino rule resulted in less favourable treatment for women.

He considered the Gill and Coote case unlikely to succeed and that it raised no important matter of principles, so advised the Commission not to proceed with an appeal.

[1] The judges refused to dismiss the case under the legal maxim of de minimis non curat lex, stating that it was more than a mere trifle that women were banned from the bar as it provided a unique atmosphere, in great demand by the male patrons.

[13] El Vino was ordered to pay legal costs, estimated at £8,000–9,000, and refused leave to appeal to the House of Lords.

[17] The ban against Coote and Gill entering the premises was lifted by 16 November, though bar staff refused to serve them drinks, claiming it was a landlord's right to do so, without reason, under common law.

[20] In 2017 Coote and Gill attended a celebration at El Vino, now under new owners, for the 35th anniversary of the case; the event raised money for the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for gender equality.