Appeal court rules against man haunted by fly in water bottl

[IRiSHMaFIA]

A Windsor, Ont., man lost out on a $341,775 court judgment yesterday, when the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that a bottling company should not have been held liable for triggering a phobia of flies that altered his personality and killed his sex life.

Waddah Mustapha -- a Lebanese immigrant with a mania for cleanliness -- had won the award in 2005 after persuading a judge that a water-bottling company ought to pay dearly for delivering him a water bottle with a dead fly floating near the top.

Soon after the incident, Mr. Mustapha, 46, began to suffer serious psychiatric symptoms -- a major depressive disorder with associated phobia and anxiety.

He became edgy, argumentative, depressed, couldn't sleep and refused to even drink coffee because it contained water.

Overturning the award in a 3-0 ruling, the Court of Appeal said the outcome of the fly incident was so bizarre that it couldn't have been reasonably foreseen by the company, Culligan of Canada Ltd.

It said that neither Mr. Mustapha nor his family came close to suffering a foreseeable physical injury: "Nobody drank anything from the bottle. It remained sealed. There can be no physical harm from seeing a dead fly in a bottle of water."

Writing for the court, Mr. Justice Robert Blair said that a defendant cannot be found liable for psychiatric harm where the harm "by any objective measurement, consists of an exaggerated reaction by an obsessive person of particular sensibilities to what, in reality, is a relatively minor and trivial incident -- the sight of a dead fly in a bottle of consumer water."

At the time of the incident, Judge Blair said, Mr. Mustapha and his wife had two daughters -- aged 7 and 3 -- and Ms. Mustapha was seven months pregnant. Mr. Mustapha is a hair stylist who immigrated to Canada in 1976.

Based on Culligan's representations about the purity and healthful quality of its water, including how it would benefit pregnant women and children and how much better it was for someone than city water, Mr. Mustapha installed Culligan dispensers both in his salon and at home, Judge Blair said.

"He and his family used nothing but Culligan water for consumption thereafter."

He noted that the family home was spotless: "Cleanliness and hygiene are matters of utmost importance to them."

In that context, Judge Blair said, the fly incident on Nov. 21, 2001, "offended their sense of sanctity in the purity of their home, and shattered Mr. Mustapha's life."

Although none of the family drank from the unopened bottle, both parents vomited after. Mr. Mustapha, in particular, couldn't put the experience out of his mind.

"He became obsessed with thoughts about the dead fly in the water and about the potential implications for his family's health of their having possibly been drinking unpurified water supplied in the past," Judge Blair said.

In his 2005 trial ruling, Mr. Justice John Brockenshire of the Superior Court of Ontario described the bizarre symptoms Mr. Mustapha began exhibiting after the incident.

"He pictures flies walking on animal feces or rotten food and then being in his supposedly pure water," Judge Brockenshire said. "He has been constipated, is bothered by revolting mental images of flies on feces, etc., can no longer take long and enjoyable showers and instead, after lengthy treatment, can only take perfunctory showers with his head down so the water does not strike his face."

Writing on behalf of Madam Justice Eleanore Cronk and Mr. Justice Edward Then, Judge Blair ordered Mr. Mustapha to pay legal costs of $30,000 to the bottling company.

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What a bloody fool. He was a psycho long before seeing the fly in the water as far as I'm concerned.

This is just another example of a sue happy society, thinking they can make an easy buck. I'm glad he lost AND had to pay the the water companies legal bills.

Maybe outcomes like this will show all the other idiots like him not to take advantage of the legal system.

[faceless]

they should make the lawyers pay for the cases if they fail - that would stop 99% of them coming close to court. When you employ any normal professional you don't pay if they fuck it up, so why can lawyers get away with being such leeches?

[IRiSHMaFIA]

[eefanincan]

[Gasman59]