The Supreme Court of Canada will decide today if a man who found a fly in his water bottle is entitled to six figure compensation.
He didn't drink the water, but said that he was so traumatised by the sight, that he developed a phobia of flies, was unable to sleep, and his sex life suffered.
CBC

Hurrah! Applying Donoghue and Stevenson, the snail and the ginger beer bottle,one of only two cases that every law student remembers (the other involved Mrs Carlill's cold and the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company):

Gastropod shock

[Scroll down to "Background Facts" ]

quote:

Donoghue and Stevenson, the

Goodness! Even I know of thatthat particular get-together. Or is it the fault all those law-students I used to frequent? Nostalgic and o so very relevant and à propos...

PENTICTON, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - May 21, 2008) - Aboriginal young people in the Okanagan region will have continued access to professional arts training, thanks to an investment by the Government of Canada.

The Honourable Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety and Member of Parliament (Okanagan-Coquihalla), on behalf of the Honourable Josee Verner, Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages, today announced funding for the Okanagan Indian Educational Resources Society to support the En'owkin Centre, located on the Okanagan Indian Reserve, close to Penticton.

The En'owkin Centre will receive funding of $240,000 for its National Aboriginal Professional Arts Training program. Under this program, Aboriginal arts professionals provide the Aboriginal student body with a two-year, in-depth opportunity to explore, strengthen, and perfect traditional arts practices. Training emphasizes traditional arts techniques and creative processes.

Not quite the same as Donoghue and Stevenson, Fred, and very sensibly, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed Mr Mustapha's claim today.

"[Mustapha] failed to show that it was foreseeable that a person of ordinary fortitude would suffer serious injury from seeing the flies in the bottle of water he was about to install. Unusual or extreme reactions to events caused by negligence are imaginable but not reasonably foreseeable," the decision read.

Not only did he walk away with no award, but he was ordered to pay the bottled water company's costs. CBC, Top court dismisses fly-in-water case

Decisions like this are one of the reasons I'm glad I live in Canada, and not the US. Common sense prevailed in this instance. The comments under the article seem to support this.

dg, do you think the judge at first instance who held that the damage claimed was not too remote will keep their job ? (Sounds like a case for early retirement ) Yes, I do think I know the answer. Like mad dogs, mad judges are allowed one free bite.

Donoghue answered a question of law, not fact, viz. that there was a claim in tort possible and no need to prove some contractual relationship between the parties. As it happens, in that case the lady would have had no trouble proving that sickness from swallowing any part of any drink contaminated by a rotting snail was forseeable [this is the gastric gastropod principle ].Mere shock would be forseeable but hardly worth much in damages.Not that it ever got that far. All this argument and the whole case they learn was all pre-trial not on appeal after it. As the Wiki article says, the belief is that it turned out there was no snail.Still it was nice to find out what law to apply, had there been one.

Fred, do you EVER sleep?
In England it's 4am !

quote:

Originally posted by dg:
Fred, do you EVER sleep?
In England it's 4am !

" Time has no meaning for a love like ours" (Anthony Aloysius Hancock) and I love myself so much that time has no meaning.

Anyway, I wasn't up and about again until 8 a.m.this morning. Nice to have a lie in.

(It's a Bank Holiday weekend and I've started it early)

quote:
Originally posted by dg:
Fred, do you EVER sleep?
In England it's 4am !

A transplanted Englishwoman living in Canada know what the time is EVERYWHERE...

quote:

Originally posted by FredPuli:

" Time has no meaning for a love like ours" (Anthony Aloysius Hancock) and I love myself so much that time has no meaning.

Glad to read that I don't need to worry about your self esteem. Yes, I know it's a bank holiday there. Whitsun isn't it?

Bob, not everywhere, lol. But with my sisters working in the UK, and my schedule here, there's only a small window of opportunity to call them during the week because of the time difference.

quote:

Originally posted by dg:

Yes, I know it's a bank holiday there. Whitsun isn't it?

No.Are you serious? It's not Whitsun, it's Spring Bank Holiday How long have you been away? The Whitsun holiday was scrapped by Harold Wilson because it disobediently kept moving about (something to do with it being a set number of days after Easter) and so not suitable for his Britain of White Hot Technology (hence the trade union expression 'strike while the iron technology is hot', which they did).He declared the holiday to be the last Monday in May instead and named it Spring Bank holiday. The Friday before is the Spring Poets Day, of course

Well, I only called it Whitsun because that's what lots of people still call it, especially the older generation.

Do they still have a holiday for May Day? Do they have Morris Men and Maypole dancers? Or has that changed too?

quote:

Originally posted by dg:

Do they still have a holiday for May Day? Do they have Morris Men and Maypole dancers? Or has that changed too?

A May Day, May the 1st, holiday is not British but foreign . It's objectionable on that ground alone. So we have it on the Monday following and call it 'the May Bank Holiday'

The Maypole went the way of the Home and Colonial and the Co-Op with 'divis' (now there's a memory test !)

Haven't seen the maypole, that children dance around, in quite a while around this village but they still exist and you'll see them erected at village fetes in Spring in all parts of England.

Morris Men? There are more Morris now than ever.There are at least two Companies in this bit of South Cambridgeshire alone. It had been set back by the Great War but was 'rediscovered', in Cambridge by a load of academics who researched the tradition, formed a Morris and got five other Morris to set up a national revival in the 1930s. Morris nearly died out again by the end of the War, by which time the Spam Dance had been introduced, the men dancing around a tin, playfully striking one another with their gas masks (pigs' bladders being 'on ration').

The Morris get everywhere. There was a whole load of them dancing at sunrise on the Gog Magog Hills this last Solstice, attracting a lot of druid fanciers from the City (of Cambridge, not hedge fund managers from The City).Didn't seem very traditional to me. The tradition around here is for Morris to dance through the villages, very sensibly ending with dances at the village pub so as to refuel before going on to the next village. What pub is open at sunrise on some hill above Cambridge, I ask you? One group has two women, which is certainly not traditional, though, this being Cambridge, they might have been transsexuals who hadn't given up the dancing since the op.(I should have asked: worth a swipe with a pig's bladder, if I was wrong)

Fred, transexual Morris dancers? I don't think you are being serious.

Oh WOW...a fourth right human foot has washed up on the beach in BC..I need to investigate.

Seems there may be an explanation:

Severed feet could answer mystery of missing brothers

quote:

Well, I only called it Whitsun because that's what lots of people still call it, especially the older generation. Big Grin

Do they still have a holiday for May Day? Do they have Morris Men and Maypole dancers? Or has that changed too?

We do have a forum for Brits I believe, more than one I think, is this not about Canadian news?

We still celebrate Whit Monday in France, at least we did this year. The Government changed it into a day of solidarity with the elderly and the handicapped a couple of days ago but the whole show was mismanaged and half the country still took a day off. It was reinstated this May, with individual companies urged to show solidarity on some other day or days or whatever. Most are "thinking about what to do".
Whit (the seventh Sunday after Easter) used to be when most christenings took place in ENgland, the word "whit" being a corruption of "white", the traditional colour of the christening robes.

Tim Horton's, home of the 'Timbit' just can't get good pr these days.

Homeless, pregnant woman turfed from Tim Hortons

By TAMARA CHERRY -- Sun Media

The Toronto Sun

Was Tim Hortons wrong for kicking her out?

Tim Hortons has found itself in the spotlight yet again after reports of a
downtown Toronto employee reaming out a business woman for buying a homeless
pregnant woman breakfast.
The alleged incident happened Wednesday morning after Teresa Lee said she
came across a homeless lady sleeping on a King St. grate before offering to
buy her breakfast at the popular coffee chain.
After buying the homeless woman a meal, the business woman was approached by
an employee who scolded her for bringing the woman into the store, according
to media reports.
Tim Hortons has defended itself by saying the homeless woman has been known
to cause problems in the restaurant before.
"Anyone who poses a risk to a safe customer environment is not welcome in
the stores, especially if they have a history of making threatening
disturbances," Tim Hortons spokesman Rachel Douglas said in a statement
today.
The company has apologized to Lee with regards to how the employee dealt
with the situation, Lee said.
"In this specific case the person involved has been in the store previously
and has been very disruptive and asked to leave on several occasions,"
Douglas said. "The staff were reacting to that history."
This comes two weeks after Nicole Lilliman, a single mom in London, Ont.,
lost her job at Tim Hortons for giving a sour-cream glazed Timbit to a
customer's fussy child for free.
Following a public relations nightmare brought about by the incident,
Lilliman was rehired at another Tim Hortons store the following day.

"Reaming out a business woman" Roog ? What,did they make her a bigger bore than she was? 'Ream out' is to enlarge a hole with a reamer or other tool until the hole is the desired size

Talking of foreign languages, what have a small mackerel (brit) or the British Recording Industry Trust [formerly British Phonographic Industry] awards ('Brits') to do with this thread?

We British/Britons may have thought that your thread could do with some wit Whit, not that I care a whit

Now, back to the transsexual Morris (seems like a nice boy)....

quote:

"Reaming out a business woman" Roog ? Eek What,did they make her a bigger bore than she was? 'Ream out' is to enlarge a hole with a reamer or other tool until the hole is the desired size

That seems to be a loaded question Fred. Unless you really need an answer I'll decline for now.

I do enjoy the British wit/whit but do take the time to review the title of this thread.

I enjoy most of your posts Fred however here in "Canadian Corner",speaking for myself of course, we do like to stay on topic.

I recommend DG's "They're always be an England."

However,if you do have any trouble navigating I'm always here to help. Canadian style - it's what we Canadians do.