A Australian court case that has seen a plaintiff fail in suing an airline over claims that she contracted Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) – otherwise known as Economy Class Syndrome – is likely to set precedent for hundreds of similar cases under way in Australia.

The decision, handed down with minimal media fanfare by the District Court of NSW last week – saw 67-year-old Van Luin lose her $750,000 claim against KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. She had claimed she suffered DVT two years ago as a result of a flight from Sydney to Europe.

But the court found in favour of KLM. Judge Knight said that Ms Luin’s DVT resulted from her “own internal reaction to the usual, normal and expected operation of the aircraft”.

Ari Abrahams, an insurance litigation partner with Melbourne law firm Lander & Rogers who handled the airline’s defence, said he hopes the case will discourage claimants from proceeding with DVT claims.

“It was the first Australian DVT case [of its kind] so it will be ‘influential’ on similar cases to follow,” Mr Abrahams said. “There are currently hundreds of DVT claims waiting to be decided in the Supreme Court of Victoria,” he said. “Although the NSW District Court case won’t be binding on the Supreme Court as it is a higher court, the decision is likely to be influential.”

Mr Abrahams said it would also have influence because other DVT cases will be pleaded in a similar way. “The claimants’ arguments are being framed similarly. They are arguing that they contracted DVT when they were on a flight and forced to sit in confined seating arrangements; that they were discouraged from moving around and encouraged to drink tea or coffee and were not warned about the risk of DVT. This is the first case where the judge looked at all those factors and decided each of those factors were not the cause of DVT.”

Mr Abrahams said that even if they were successful in proving DVT was the cause, future claimants still would not be able to succeed, because Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention states the cause of injury has to be due to an “unusual and unexpected cause”. DVT is not considered to fall under that category.