Lebanese immigrant Waddah Mustapha sued the bottling company, saying he had suffered psychological damage, including depression, phobia, anxiety and damage to his sex life after the unpleasant 2001 discovery.

Mr. Mustapha had won the award in 2005 after persuading a judge that a water-bottling company ought to pay dearly for suffering 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. At the time of the incident, 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.

He won C$340,000 (173,175 pounds) in damages in a lower court, but the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that he had not proved his case.

"Mr Mustapha must show that it was foreseeable that a person of ordinary fortitude would suffer serious injuries from seeing the flies in the bottle of water he was about to install. This he failed to do," the court said.

According to the 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, and found it difficult to shower. 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.

He also said he was afflicted by visions of flies walking over faeces.

Mustapha -- who will lose the award and must pay the costs of the case -- was not immediately available for comment.

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