The Culligan Man Gets Hosed

Every so often, I get the pleasure of telling you about a crazy case.  I’ve got a doozy this week!

Let me tell you about Mr. Mustapha.  He and his wife used bottled water from the Culligan man and had been doing so for years.  One day, Mr. Mustapha was putting a new bottle on the dispenser.  He noticed a dead fly in the bottle.  He pointed it out to his pregnant wife, who immediately vomited in the kitchen sink, then went to the bathroom to vomit some more. 

Mr. Mustapha vomited that night as well.  He could not get the image of the fly in the bottle out of his mind.  He had nightmares about flies.  He couldn’t sleep more than four hours a night. 

He hasn’t been able to drink water since.  He stopped taking showers.  He had to have the help of a doctor, a psychologist, a psychiatrist and some powerful medication to make any progress.  He claimed that his business suffered.

He sued Culligan.  After a seven-day trial, HE WON.  Remember, they did not drink the fly:  they just saw it in the bottle.

He got $80,000 for pain and suffering, $24,174 for expenses and $237,600 for lost income.  That’s over $340,000, plus costs and interest.  In the end, it will likely be worth over $500,000.

Here’s the most astounding part of this case:  it happened here in Ontario and was decided last month.

I’ve gotta hand it to Mr. Mustapha’s lawyers.  I would have thought that the only way to win this case would have been if it was in the United States.  They convinced a judge that Mr. Mustapha’s reaction (which the judge even described as “bizarre”) was an objectively foreseeable consequence.  You see, the law of negligence only compensates people for “reasonably foreseeable” injuries.

I am stunned that a court could consider the Mustaphas’ reaction as reasonably foreseeable.  The guy stops showering because he saw a fly in his drinking water????  It’s not like he was using Culligan water to shower with in the first place.  He needed anti-depressants for two years and ongoing treatment.  How can that be a foreseeable result?

On top of that, they convinced the judge that Culligan had to meet a standard of perfection in producing its bottled water.  As I read the case, any contamination, no matter what steps were taken to prevent it, would result in liability against Culligan.

I hope, I really hope, that I will be able to report to you some day that there has been a successful appeal.

I found a web forum with comments about this case.  I thought I’d pass on a few gems that, in my mind, are representative of the typical person’s reaction to this case, as well as some really witty ones that I wish I had come up with.

“Wait, I thought Canada was immune to this sort of American judicial insanity.”

“What happens if a fly were to land on this guy’s face? Would he grate the infested skin off with a cheese grater?”

“If anyone knows a good lawyer who can help me with my lawsuit over the worm I found in the bottle of tequila I bought one day, please email me.”

“The Culligan frog must have missed that one.”