Sarah Katz, 21, had a heart condition and was not aware of the drink’s caffeine content, which exceeded that of cans of Red Bull and Monster energy drinks combined, according to a legal filing
Sarah Katz, 21, had a heart condition and was not aware of the drink’s caffeine content, which exceeded that of cans of Red Bull and Monster energy drinks combined, according to a legal filing
That’s insane. I hope not only that they win the lawsuit, but that companies understand stimulants can be harder (even dangerous) on some people.
The way caffeine affects me does not risk my life, but it can get ugly as I have a mental health condition that gets triggered by stimulants. It is so common to rely on caffeine nowadays, and it’s present in many beverages and snacks. People forget it is still a drug.
There should be labels and there should be less of a presence of caffeine (and other legal drugs) in unrelated products. I mean, it’s normal if coffee has caffeine, it shouldn’t be normal that a lemonade has caffeine.
I disagree. Don’t get me wrong - fuck Panera in general, but I’m all for more products being offered so long as they’re properly labeled which this was. Also with a name like charged lemonade it heavily omplies it’s not normal lemonade. There’s an argument to be made here about personal responsibilities and reading labels.
Charged lemonadw to me would indicate extra sweet not cat piss gaurana.
Well you should probably read what’s in it then if you’re not sure lol.
Then look at the label and see that it says its caffeine content, as well as comparing it to coffee
Like, other than not selling it at all, there’s not much else they could’ve done here
Yeah it’s a tragic story, but I don’t think Panera is at fault here. What I would like for them to do is update their signage to be even more specific as a result of this. There’s no legal requirement to, and I don’t think a court will find them liable, but no matter how you spin it, this was an absolute tragedy for the girl and her family. Caffeine overdose is an incredibly unpleasant feeling when you drink one more coffee than you should. The poor girl. It would be kind of Panera to make changes because of it.
Agreed. I mentioned this in another comment but I’m wondering if she was picking up an online order? The article was not clear about that, but it would certainly be a different story if the lemonade wasn’t properly labeled on the online menu
Very true
The beverage contains 390mg, which is equivalent to 6.5 cups of coffee. I hope this will be used as a case study for other businesses on how to properly label your drinks and further increase transparancy about ingredients used in beverages.
6.5 thimble-sized cups. Compare to an average large coffee (431mg/20oz from Dunkin), or to the average amount consumed by coffee drinkers (~200mg for adults on average, with the 90th percentile being 300-400mg depending on the age group).
This touches on yet another conflating factor. The personal tolerance to caffeine varies wildly from person to person. Some can’t have even one cup a day, while others will down an entire pot and just shrug.
This is an absolute tragedy, but Panera is not legally liable. They should however respect her death by improving their signage and giving much more information. A warning that high consumption can be fatal with rare, unknown conditions seems appropriate.
Yeah, I agree. “As much caffeine as our coffee” should be replaced with an explicit number in milligrams and be presented in a standardized label format. It’s important information.
Holy crap, just imagine if they accidentally got the mix ratio on the machine wrong and somebody got a higher concentration of syrup.
Panera needs to lose this lawsuit and they need to lose it really hard.
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