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.
This is a person who already has medical issues that put him at risk of his exact cause of death, and he knowingly endangers his own life by consuming substances - in excess - which would endanger him further. While I understand and am sympathetic to his disabilities, what I don’t understand is how Panera Bread is legally responsible for this person’s death.
Should Panera Bread put a warning label on its charged lemonade? Apparently, it’s necessary. Should they consider lowering the dose of caffeine? Possibly. But if a person in precarious physical health due to having high blood pressure - one who know not to consume highly-caffeinated beverages - does so anyway, and in excess, to the point that it causes a heart attack, I simply cannot see how the one who sold them the caffeinated drink are to blame.
A large cup is 390mg of caffeine brother… no labels, and sometimes is right next to the normal lemonade.
270mg is the norm in a potent energy drink.
A single cup of that shit would throw you into palpitations and panic, no doubt.
Want to take a guess at how much caffeine is in a large coffee?
~270mg is the usual.
As a certified grad student loser, I would totally know. Adding a shot of espresso is around 65mg of caffeine per shot.
Most I’ve done is an americano with 4 extra shots of espresso. This is reserved for being an idiot and needing a way to maximize sleep schedules.
The difference is that the normal people know that 30 oz of coffee is too much coffee, and that 30 oz of lemonade is a normal amount of lemonade
Yeah if those energy drinks require a warning label (and they usually have one, see pic), the lemonade should probably also come with one.
There’s labels everywhere at Panera. In person and on their website.
https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/b510c87d-d4cb-45e5-8f4a-47acac526a4c.jpeg
That photo clearly shows the mg of caffeine per size of drink. What more labeling do you want?
I’m dumbfounded that they’re allowed to sell those drinks in Canada. If it’s an energy drink from a store, there is a set limit of up to 180mg per container. (200mg for the little energy shot bottles.) We recall these things all the damn time for not having enough/adequate labelling.
Apparently though, caffeine can just magically tell if it comes from a restaurant or from a can, and it decides to be less harmful if you get it from doordash instead of from a convenience store. /s
Can anyone tell me how this makes sense? They cared enough to add new caffeine mandates and limits back in August of this year, but the buck apparently stops when it’s a chain restaurant in question. Thanks, I hate it.
Ahh but knowingly is the key word here. See, the company put the drink right next to their regular non caffeinated drinks such a regular lemonade, had no warning labels, and offered free refills on the drinks.
So how could they reasonably have known?
390mg is pushing right up against the FDAs safety limit for daily total intake.
Now, if you saw a drink called charged lemonade next to their regular lemonade, what would you think it was? Lemonade with some extra fruits perhaps?
You certainly wouldn’t think that it contains such a ridiculous level of caffeine that rides right up to the FDA safety line in a single cup, especially if they offer free refills.
No, I see the word ‘charged’ and I immediately think energy drinks.
Do red bull, monster, and starbucks put caffeine warnings on their products?
Do restaurants typically give out free refills on Red Bull, Monster, or Starbucks? “Charged” could easily be a knockoff Gatorade as their logo is a lighting bolt and I would never expect a restaurant to give out free energy drinks at the refill station.
That’s a really good point. I assumed it was a specialty drink where you have to pay for refills.
I can easily see people going overboard with this if it’s just a fountain drink like the rest of them.
coffee is typically free refills and entirely unlabeled
Coffee is also incredibly obvious that it’s caffeinated
Regular coffee yes, you indeed get refills.
Red Bull and monster do put caffeine warnings on their products, and Starbucks doesn’t have to because normal people understand that coffee has caffeine
“Charged” is not a standard term. Have you ever heard of charged cider? Charged seltzer? It’s not a thing. To be sure, I googled “charged cider,” and found one result. It is not caffeinated cider.
https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/b510c87d-d4cb-45e5-8f4a-47acac526a4c.jpeg
I’ve seen it. Any time I’ve shown that picture to someone unfamiliar with the story, I ask them which flavor sounds best to them, and then once I’ve taken my phone back, I ask them how much caffeine was in the drink. Every single person was dumbfounded. Why would lemonade have caffeine?
So you show them a picture and then ask them to focus on the flavors, and then take the picture away and then ask a different question. You do understand why that’s not scientific and is unfair to the results.
Yes, because that’s actually what’s physically happening when someone walks up to the lemonade dispenser and grabs a drink, then walks away and wonders why their heart is palpating. They walk up to the dispenser and decide on what flavor looks best, and only after they’ve left and no longer see the sign do they have reason to suspect that they’ve had caffeine.
Starbucks doesn’t need to on the basis that it is coffee - of course that’s going to have caffeine. It’s like putting a peanut warning on a bag of peanuts.
Red Bull and Monster call themselves energy drinks, and not lemonade. Was a bit of a problem when energy drinks were becoming popular, but now it is accepted that energy drinks have caffeine.
Even then you need to drink an entire pack of energy drinks to get the same caffeine levels as a single charged lemonade. That’s how much caffeine was in Charged Lemonades
but it had a label, didn’t it? one listing its contents? how is Panera Bread responsible for a person’s lack of self-control?
He already knew he had high blood pressure and to avoid highly-caffeinated foods/beverages. he purchased and consumed something three times without reading the label which would have informed him of the amount of caffeine it contained. How is it Panera Bread’s fault that he neglected to do that and consumed the beverage anyway?
And how many labels do you check for contents that a given food just plain does not contain? Because lemonades typically don’t have any caffeine in them.
Would you check the labels of a coffee in case it has alcohol? Would you check the labels of a fruit salad incase it has meat? Would you check the label of a lemonade for dangerous levels of caffeine?
You obviously wouldn’t, and as a result this could have easily fucked you up. Two cups of this, and you’d be having heart palpitations.
Because it is unreasonable to expect a lemonade to contain any caffeine, especially when the company failed to give notice of the fact.
What are you expecting him to do, read every label of literally every thing they consume, incase their packet of rice somehow contains caffeine?
Because they called it a lemonade, not a fucking energy drink, and gave no advanced notices that the item even has caffeine, let alone a borderline dangerous amount. And no, a tiny ass listing on the back of the retail cups is not enough.
Oh, and they offered and advertised free refills on a drink that they knew is crazy dangerous to consume more than a single cup of, even for healthy people.
How is any of that the fault of Panera bread? And why can’t you answer that simple question?
The amount in the lemonade was approved by the FDA, and it is every person‘s responsibility to check what they consume before they do so. The person had a pre-existing health condition, and that is not Panera bread‘s fault, either. 
You can’t just go around blaming everyone else for your own mistakes.
I did answer the question. Let me repeat incase you have trouble reading.
They called it lemonade, put it in a lineup among non caffeinated drinks (right next to their regular lemonade), put zero warning labels on and offered free refills on a drink that rode so close to the line of safe daily intakes that having two would cause serious problems even in healthy people.
They basically did everything they possibly could to hide this information. A single line in an ingredients is not sufficient warning because no reasonable consumer would check the ingredients of a lemonade for dangerous levels of caffeine.
Nope! FDA doesn’t actually regulate restaurants, and Charged Lemonade isn’t something that can be bought in store, only at Panera restaurants. FDA officially has no jurisdiction here:
https://www.fda.gov/food/food-industry/how-start-food-business
What you’ve done is mix fact with opinion to massively misrepresent the situation. You’re welcome to try that in a civil lawsuit, but if I’m on the jury, I would vote to dismiss the case. 
What did I mix, exactly? The only bit that is opinion was me stating they did everything they could to hide the information.
I’ve stated my case, and I find your counter argument insufficient. If you’re looking for some endless debate, you’re not gonna get one. The guy knew his health situation, drank a drink he knew better than to drink labeled charged lemonade. Panera bread is not responsible for a risk that the man took knowingly.
Sorry if that’s not good enough for you, but it’s going to have to be. Have a good night. 
They’ve put warning labels on the lemonade now (there were none before), and have also removed it from their unlimited refills club.
They’ve also lowered the amount of caffeine to a somewhat safer dose.
If you’re curious about this sort of thing, look up “eggshell plaintiff” - a widely accepted legal precedent addressing your argument https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull
“Knowingly” is a stretch. These self serve dispensers do not make the caffeine content obvious unless you’re desperately trying to defend Panera and already know that they have caffeine