Panera Bread’s highly caffeinated Charged Lemonade is now blamed for a second death, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.
Dennis Brown, of Fleming Island, Florida, drank three Charged Lemonades from a local Panera on Oct. 9 and then suffered a fatal cardiac arrest on his way home, the suit says.
Brown, 46, had an unspecified chromosomal deficiency disorder, a developmental delay and a mild intellectual disability. He lived independently, frequently stopping at Panera after his shifts at a supermarket, the legal complaint says. Because he had high blood pressure, he did not consume energy drinks, it adds.
Because the drink was not clearly marked as being dangerous, a good article on this: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/panera-adds-warning-caffeinated-lemonade-stores-lawsuit-customers-deat-rcna122628
If you want the tldr: the “lemonade” was located next to regular drinks and “Photos … show it was advertised as “plant-based and clean,” containing as much caffeine as the restaurant’s dark roast coffee.”.
Apparently Panera’s defence is that each customer should look up and read the detailed ingredient list and have enough specialized nutritional knowledge to know which dosages constitute a danger to their life.
To play devil’s advocate (because I really don’t care for Panera Bread or energy drinks), but…
“Because the drink was not clearly marked as being dangerous…”
It’s actually NOT dangerous for healthy individuals. In the first death, the woman had a heart condition and knew it had caffeine in it, but obviously not her or Panera would know what her safe limit (if any) would be. Yet, she consumed it anyway.
In this more recent death, the man had multiple health risks, including high blood pressure, an “intellectual disability”, “blurry vision” and “ADHD” (not sure if he was also on medication for any of those).
Assuming it was self-serve, as most Panera Bread’s are (I believe), he would have seen this:
Now, he many not have understood what any of that means, but he also purchased this drink “at least seven times over the course of two weeks” according to the lawsuit.
Having high blood pressure means that even the sugar would create problems for him.
He ended up drinking “3 servings”, which could be up to 2.5L (!!!) worth, which killed him. That’s not a normal amount of any beverage, for any individual, in one sitting. Let alone a high sugar, high caffeine drink for someone with high blood pressure who may have also been on medication.
I guess my question would be: what else should restaurants do?
Someone with a health condition could be at risk when they overconsume on most foods that are high in one thing or another (fat, salt, sugar, caffeine, etc.)
Hell, drinking enough water in a short amount of time could kill you, so where does a restaurant’s responsibility end and the individual’s responsibility begin?
They are selling a drink where one serving contains 97.5% of the recommended maximum daily dosage of a stimulating substance. We (me at least) now know that that maximum daily dosage is 400mg, but I only know that now because people died and it was prominently feaurered on social media.
A borderline drink like this, should be locked away in a liquor cabinet or only be dispensed by a licensed bartender. When selling the drink, the cashier/bartender should then also warn customers of the danger of the contents and that they should not drink it if they have already consumed caffeine that day, nor should they consume any other caffeine during the rest of the day. Clearly they aren’t doing any of that, it’s just a container in the general food area, with some nutritional information that most people not fully comprehend.
We all constantly buy and consume stuff without fully understanding what’s in it. When buying stuff in the store, I only check the sugar contents in the detailed ingredient list. When buying stuff in a takeaway, I check nothing. I’m certainly not going to sleuth on the internet to find the max dosages of each ingredient. If a drink is put out in the open like this, then I assume that it’s safe.
Tbh, I’m absolutely disgusted by the victim blaming in this case. It’s not that man’s fault that he was not smart and him not being smart, definitely does not make this death acceptable.
Again, I’m simply playing devil’s advocate here, and I’m not taking one side over the other… I’m just exploring the evidence presented.
To clarify, they sell this drink in two sizes. One has around the same amount of caffeine as a tall coffee at Starbucks, the other (852ml size) has under 400mg.
The FDA says that most people should have no more than 400mg (assuming they are 175lbs), but that’s only because it produces unwanted side effects and/or can have long term health effects at that dose.
The actual lethal limit is something like 10,000mg.
The issue is that he had multiple health conditions, which would be exacerbated by both caffeine AND sugar, but not if he consumed reasonable quantities. This is why he was able to have the same drink many times in the past without incident.
While I agree that energy drinks shouldn’t be sold to minors, since they are at a higher risk of harm and likely don’t have the brains to understand those risks, what you describe goes way beyond the responsibility of a restaurant.
Would you expect a coffee shop to do the same? Literally ask questions they have no business asking, any time someone orders a caffeinated beverage or shock a tray of them?
The drinks at Panera are self-serve, btw.
To reiterate: IT IS SAFE. People with health conditions or taking meds needs to be acutely aware of what they should and should not consume, especially if they plan to consume it in larger quantities that’s considered beyond normal.
And you also point out another problem: people assume that the food they consume is “safe”, but ignore any health problems they might have which could make any food unsafe.
High blood pressure, a heart condition, gluten intolerance, food allergy, food interaction with meds, etc… anyone with any of those conditions should be hyper-aware of what goes into their body. If they ignore their limits, problems happen.
If you do have to avoid a certain food, ingredient, or nutrition, it’s always best to ask to find out before consuming it. Or avoid it if you’re unsure.
I agree, it’s a tragedy. But I don’t think Panera Bread can be blamed in this case.
the ld50 for a 175lb person is 15,240.75mg. 10,000 can EASILY kill someone. 5,000 probably still kills 1/4 of people (i didn’t look up the curve). i would guess that 1000 is probably safe for most people, but even a 1% death rate is pretty high for a lemonade.
AKA the position of every libertarian ever. No big deal, just some collateral damage while the “free market” “corrects itself.”
I wonder how much of that libertarian bullshit is organic and how much part of a hidden media campaign. This entire case is giving me the same vibes as that Macdonald’s hot coffee case, where they successfully villified the victim.
But fortunately this is in the USA, there must be tens of thousands of lawyers salivating over this case.
They usually omit the part where the market correct itself only after you sue the shit out of them