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
I don't think they will lose. It clearly states charged lemonade which most people will understand means caffinated. Even if you don't know that means caffinated it has lettering that is more than large enough that states it has caffeine as well as the amount. It is so apparent that this is caffinated and just as apparent how much it is. It sucks this lady died but either she is also blind as a bat or she decided to gamble and drink it.
The warning has to be reasonable for its purpose. Intended and likely to reach the consumer, and to be understood. It's meant to fairly apprise consumers of the material risks.
There is nothing resembling a warning. That's fine if it's just regular lemonade. It seems to me to be positioned as basically regular lemonade and otherwise indistinguishable except for "charged," "# mg caffiene," and "natural ingredients."
This information seems inadequate based on the seriousness and likelihood of the material risk. The girl's condition is apparently pretty common, the seriousness of the danger is deathly, and the likelihood that consumers in the girl's position are as likely as not to understand the danger. More is required.
The average consumer does not know about dosages of caffeine in milligrams, and possible side effects. The labeling seems hardly likely to inform a consumer that one glass of lemonade they are about to drink is the equivalent of drinking three cups of coffee. Who the fuck puts caffiene into lemonade? Is it even lemonade?
Edit: speech to text has gotten worse lately. Also, I have to wonder whether anyone asked for this product? I wonder what the focus groups said. Did they even do them? The more I think of this the worse the idea seems.
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The sign says outright that it has as much caffeine as coffee. If drinking an amount of coffee would be too much, drinking that much charged lemonade would be roughly equally too much.
Also, apparently she had a medical condition that meant she shouldn't be consuming large amounts of caffeine. And she ordered and consumed a large amount of caffeine. That's what killed her.
This is akin to arguing that a restaurant is responsible if someone with a shellfish allergy orders the shrimp.
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More than you get from one lemonade, for a healthy person. Not much less than the FDA recommended maximum per day if we're talking about the largest size, but the gap between "maximum recommended" and overdose is a reasonable bit. If you've ever known someone to drink more than four cups of coffee, or as many energy drinks (or as few as 2 for certain brands), you've known someone who exceeded the recommended maximum. You have to go a fair bit past it to have acute issues if you are otherwise healthy.
If you have a medical condition that restricts your diet, it is on you to know what you can and cannot have and on the restaurant to make it clear when something unexpected might contain the thing. I'd argue Panera, by analogizing the amount of caffeine to an equivalent volume of coffee and also giving the explicit numerical amount in each size the drink was offered in did that.
Imagine someone suing a restaurant because they ordered a dish that contains shellfish and they have a shellfish allergy. The menu spelled out that it contained shrimp, but how is anyone supposed to know that shrimp is shellfish?
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180mg/L of blood. How much this requires ingesting is not well studied, but based on known cases is at least 5g, possibly 10g or more for a typical adult. FDA recommended maximum is 400mg.