news Panera Bread sued after woman dies from their Lemonade

[Raver]

 

Quote

(CNN) — 

A 21-year-old woman with a heart condition is dead after consuming a heavily caffeinated energy drink at Panera Bread that she may have believed was regular lemonade, her parents alleged in a wrongful death suit against the restaurant chain.

In September 2022, after drinking “Charged Lemonade,” Sarah Katz experienced cardiac arrest while at a restaurant with friends and died after being transported to the hospital and suffering a second arrest, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Monday morning in Philadelphia.

Katz’s parents are seeking compensatory and punitive damages.

“We were very saddened to learn this morning about the tragic passing of Sarah Katz, and our hearts go out to her family,” Panera told CNN in a statement. “At Panera, we strongly believe in transparency around our ingredients. We will work quickly to thoroughly investigate this matter.”

In an autopsy report obtained by CNN, the medical examiner cites Katz’s cause of death as cardiac arrhythmia due to long QT syndrome (LQTS). LQTS is a disorder that can cause fast and irregular heartbeats that can be life-threatening, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Source

 

[Raver]

I just tried their lemonade today cause of the article and i can feel my heart racin 

[Breathe On Moi]

Panera is dirty, I watched the Poisoned documentary on Netflix two months ago and some girl literally went into a coma because of their lettuce.

 

they definitely cook with their feet and toes 

[rac7d]

Omg I drank it last week

 

[fauxtography]

wait im confused....? So she drank regular lemonade that was enormously loaded with caffeine or she intentionally bought an energized lemonade? idgi

 

anyways rip

[harwee]

i read this yesterday.

 

Those are labeled charged lemonade on the drink station, just reading it makes me nauseous.

[shookspeare]

chile... who puts caffeine in lemonade? especially that much?

[2NE1]

22 minutes ago, fauxtography said:

wait im confused....? So she drank regular lemonade that was enormously loaded with caffeine or she intentionally bought an energized lemonade? idgi

 

anyways rip

I think she drank the caffeinated lemonade thinking it was regular lemonade

[Mitsouko]

Caffeinated lem-

[DougAF]

It’s the same caffeine content as coffee 

 

How much did she drink anyways?  

[vuelve88]

Almost every drink at Panera has caffeine, but those lemonades have tons of caffeine. 

[Danny789]

 

Nah they’re clearly labeled 

[DamianSolo]

I'd assume anything labeled "Charged" to be caffeinated. Oh, and it even says it on the label. Now, it's different if she went through the drive-thru and asked for lemonade and they gave her "Charged Lemonade." I always question anything I'm unsure about.

[SoSickOfThatSOL]

2 hours ago, DamianSolo said:

I always question anything I'm unsure about.

As everyone should. If you have this kind of disease you should be aware of your do’s and don’t’s on food.

 

OT: RIP. Hope the family finds closure.

[Contessa]

3 hours ago, Danny789 said:

 

Nah they’re clearly labeled 

That’s an insane amount of caffeine for a single drink. 

[Saint James]

i remember a girl making a video about how potent that caffeine lemonade is years ago

[Asscatchem]

caffeine in lemonade?

[Popboi.]

4 hours ago, Danny789 said:

 

Nah they’re clearly labeled 

That’s damn caffeine with a tiny drop of lemon, my god

[ICLDXU4HS]

51 minutes ago, Popboi. said:

That’s damn caffeine with a tiny drop of lemon, my god

It’s a tiny little bit more than coffee…

[Dula Peep]

When life gives you lemons. Panera gives you cardiac arrest. 

[One Rude Boy]

Yeah a clear display of how corporations can get away with anything

Completely perplexed how this charged lemonade could even pass FDA restrictions! At least more than two monster drinks at the same caffeine level as a lemonade marketed toward children is batshit and disgusting

Edited October 26, 2023 by One Rude Boy

[WildOne]

Yes, it's clearly labeled, but how many times in your life have you accidentally bought the wrong thing because you were distracted, in a hurry, or misread the label? If that small of a mistake can be deadly, companies should be expected to go far out of their way to make those mistakes harder to make. I'm no lawyer and I don't know what legally constitutes wrongful death, but I do feel like Panera was irresponsible to the point of baring much of the fault here. This drink is dispensed from an unattended self-serve station, Panera sells cups that can fit an extremely high dose of caffeine if filled with this drink, and lemonade is not a drink people ordinarily expect to contain caffeine. Because of these three factors that increase risk to the public, Panera's responsibility to minimize risk was very high. Panera missed extremely easy opportunities to protect the public from making mistakes like this:

• Putting WAY more caffeine in the lemonade than was necessary. The lemonade was likely by far the most caffeinated drink available at the self-service drink station, at 13 mg of caffeine per fl oz. For perspective, Pepsi (which is widely known to be a caffeinated drink) contains just over 3 mg of caffeine per fl oz. Even Starbucks iced coffee contains less caffeine per fl oz than this lemonade. You can't trust ALL consumers (remember, unsupervised minors can purchase this freely) to understand what is a safe or normal amount of caffeine.
• Nowhere on the label did this say "WARNING:..." which is a short hand that people with food sensitivities often scan for.
• Charged Lemonade is mixed in-house by store employees, so its caffeine content is not strictly controlled and is subject to human error.
• The caffeine doses listed on the label are in a comparatively small font that does not contrast in color or style from nearby text, is not in capital letters, and doesn't particularly call attention to itself. 
• The drink could've been served from behind the counter, which may have increased the chance of customers asking questions about it, or being informed by an employee of its caffeine content when trying to order refills.

This woman knew about her condition since she was 5 and had been successfully avoiding deadly doses of caffeine for 16 years, this deadly mistake should've been harder to me. The possibility of mistaken consumption should have easily been foreseen by Panera and precautions should have been taken to reduce the chances of that happening, considering how low of a burden those precautions would have been.

 

Remember how Pepsi contains just over 3 mg of caffeine per fl oz? Their syrup that is sold to consumers for use with SodaStream machines contains less than 2.5 mg of caffeine per fl oz when prepared, likely to account for the possibility of people making their soda too strong or drinking too much of it without considering the caffeine content.

 

wtf i should be working rn why am i on here writing an essay about this. tf.

[elevate]

7 hours ago, Danny789 said:

 

Nah they’re clearly labeled 

The average caffeine content of an 8-oz, brewed cup of coffee is 95 mg

 

[BLΔCKP!NK]

way too much caffeine in the lemonade, but its CLEARLY labeled. she didn’t deserve to die tho. hopefully this makes them reduce the amount of caffeine in the drink because that’s absolutely ridiculous 

[Mean Trees]

I'm looking at the labels confused because I'm not a coffee drinker so I don't know what's a lot or not. RIP to her, maybe she ordered it blindly and wasn't aware of the content? Or there was no label? It seems like they're just plaques hanging off a hook so maybe they weren't placed like they should?