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.
They failed to properly set expectations. It was self-serve and publicly available, right next to other juices and teas. The expectation of customers, right or wrong, is that those sorts of products and placements mean that you can consume them at a fairly high rate.
They know their customer base, and know that their customer base regularly refills their drinks at the self-service station. They then created a drink that is unsafe to refill, as it would cause you to breach the maximum daily recommended dose.
So, any hotel is liable if a guest drinks too much coffee from the breakfast buffet?
The drink is perfectly safe for people without health issues that make caffeine unsafe.
Coffee is very much an understood and expected quantity. It’s about expectations.
Now if a hotel spiked it’s coffee with extra caffeine, more than could reasonably be expected by the average person, then yeah, possibly liable.
They listed the caffeine content very clearly.
They’re no more responsible for someone with a known medical condition that’s exacerbated by stimulants deciding to chug an unreasonable amount than Coke would be if someone with diabetes decided to chug a 2l and went into DKA.
Not to mention that the name alone carries the expectation that there will be a high caffeine content.
Then they’ll win the law suit no problem.
No, because coffee obviously has caffeine, and lemonade obviously doesn’t have caffeine
If we weren’t allowed to get more than the daily recommended dose of anything at a restaurant, our food would be drastically different than it is.
But it’s a bit different when a single cup will have you hitting those safety limits even without prior intake, yet they still offer refills.