A Melbourne engineer has launched an appeal in a case claiming his colleague repeatedly farted on him, leading to psychiatric distress.

Fifty-six-year-old David Hingst sought $1.8 million in a bullying suit against his former employer Construction Engineering last year.

A judge in the initial case found there was no bullying, but it has now been brought to the Court of Appeal on Monday.

Mr Hingst told the judges that “flatulence was a form of bullying”, and his ex-colleague Greg Short was farting on and near him intentionally.

“I would be sitting with my face to the wall and he would come into the room, which was small and had no windows,” Mr Hingst told reporters after the hearing.

“He would fart behind me and walk away. He would do this five or six times a day.

“He thrusted his bum at me while he's at work,” Mr Hingst told the panel of judges.

The appeal judges were told that Mr Hingst took to calling his colleague “Mr Stinky”, and had sprayed deodorant on him on at least one occasion.

The structural engineer said Mr Short – who was his manager at the time - also abused and taunted him in other ways, including over the phone.

Justice Phillip Priest said the allegedly abusive phone calls were the most significant part of the original claim, not the farting.

But Mr Hingst said the flatulence alone had caused “severe stress” that needed to be accounted for.

He claimed the farting and abuse was part of a concerted effort to get him to leave his job.

All this contributed to psychiatric injury, Mr Hingst said.  

Mr Hingst, who is representing himself, claims he did not get a fair trial and felt the original judge was biased against him.

The Court of Appeal judges will deliver a ruling on the appeal on Friday.