Aidan Seto
Mustapha v. Culligan of Canada Ltd., [2008] 2 S.C.R. 114, 2008 SCC 27
Background Info
Mr Mustapha and his family maintained high levels of hygiene and cleaning in their house. In 1980, one of the representatives of Culligan of Canada Ltd visited Mustapha with hopes of marketing their water to Mustapha’s family. After Mr Mustapha was notified of Culligan of Canada Ltd, and how the water supplier prided itself in being “superior” to city water, Mr Mustapha decided to implement Culligan Water into his home and business. This mutual transaction continued for 15 years until one day when Mr Mustapha found dead flies inside his unopened bottle of water supplied by Culligan. After seeing the dead flies in his unopened bottle of water, Mr Mustapha immediately vomited, feeling sensations of abdominal cramps, and abdominal pain. This eventually led to other psychological problems as Mr Mustapha began to experience emotional trauma that led to major depressive disorder and anxiety. As a result, Mustapha sued Culligan for the trauma caused by the defect in their product.
Duty of Care
According to the Canadian Public Health Association, the legalities of duty of care indicate that all people or organizations should avoid any actions that could potentially hurt or cause harm to others.
To generate a holding and conclusion for the case, the court integrated various other precedent cases to assist the analytical process. One of the first questions regarded the idea of duty of care for the trauma and injury caused to Mr Mustapha. Due to the precedent case of Donoghue v. Stevenson, [1932] A.C. 562 (H.L.), no further duty of care analysis was required. According to Donoghue v. Stevenson, the precedent case linked Mustapha v. Culligan to the duty of care as the case reflected how Culligan Water was at fault for failing to ensure that their water was free of all factors that could potentially hurt or cause harm to its consumers.
Standard of Care
Due to the fact that duty of care was established within Mustapha v. Culligan, the standard of care behind Culligan’s products was introduced for further analysis.
According to Linden and Feldthusen, a defendant’s conduct is considered negligent if it creates an unreasonable risk of harm. This indicated that the defendant's conduct did breach the standard level of care as harm and potential injury could have been caused by the act of providing Culligan’s consumers with contaminated water.
Sustain of Damage
Another question investigated was the damage that Mr Mustapha claimed to be suffering from after seeing the dead flies in the bottle of water supplied by Culligan. According to Page v. Smith, Lloyd underlined that psychological and physiological injury should not deviate from one another in the everchanging rise of medical knowledge. Hence, in relation to the sustain of damage, Page v. Smith supports the idea that Culligan is at fault for causing harm to the plaintiff. However, there is a level of remoteness between the cause of action and the harm. On the contrary, in relation to the difference between physiological and psychological damage, the law indicates that psychological disturbance and psychological upset should not be filtered into the same category with regard to injury and harm. Hence, feelings of disgust, discomfort, or anxiousness are considered as psychologically upsetting sensations rather than psychological damage. This provided further knowledge to the emerging conclusion of the case as although Culligan did cause damage to Mr Mustapha through psychological upset and mental distress, these effects caused by witnessing the flies in the bottle should not be dealt with as sustained damage.
Cause of the Damage
Lastly, the court investigated the correlation between the defendant’s breach and the cause of damage that the plaintiff claimed to be suffering from. This subcategory of analysis delved into the foreseeability of the plaintiff’s damage, specifically how foreseeable the Plaintiff’s psychological damage was. Referring to White v. Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, “the law expects reasonable fortitude and robustness of its citizens and will not impose liability for the exceptional frailty of certain individuals.” In this case, Culligan was not held liable for the psychological damage caused by the defect in their product as the law expects that, just like all citizens, Mr Mustapha should hold some level of fortitude in the infliction of pain or discomfort.
Holding / Conclusion
After investigating the four fields of the case, including duty of care, standard of care, sustain of damage, and whether the defendant’s breach intertwined with the cause of the damage, the judge of the court case concluded that the appeal and cross-appeal were dismissed. Hence, dismissing the claims of the Plaintiff and their proposition of suing the defendant.
Bibliography
Supreme Court of Canada. “Mustapha v. Culligan of Canada Ltd.” Mustapha V. Culligan of canada ltd. - SCC cases, May 22, 2008.
https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/4637/index.do.
Canadian Public Health Association. “Duty of Care Checklist.” Canadian Public Health Association | Association Canadienne de Santé Publique, January 10, 2019.
https://www.cpha.ca/duty-care-checklist#:~:text=Duty%20of%20care%3A%20The%20responsibility,of%20care%20has%20been%20established.
ROEJ OJEN. “Top Five 2007: Waddah Mustapha V Culligan of Canada Ltd.” OJEN ROEJ, January 5, 2017.
https://ojen.ca/en/resource/top-five-2007-waddah-mustapha-v-culligan-of-canada-ltd#:~:text=The%20plaintiff%20suffered%20psychological%20harm,water%20company%20was%20not%20liable.
Teacher, Law. (November 2013). Page v Smith - 1996. Retrieved from
https://www.lawteacher.net/cases/page-v-smith.php?vref=1
Teacher, Law. (November 2013). White and Others v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire. Retrieved from
https://www.lawteacher.net/cases/white-and-others-v-chief-constable.php?vref=1
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