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.
LegalEagle did an interesting video on this where he pointed out that companies don’t actually have more of a duty of care when a customer has special requirements than they do with a customer who does not have special requirements, and that PER OUNCE the caffeine content of the charged lemonade was actually slightly less than the dark roast coffee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKwrMD7zDvM
That’s still a shitton of caffeine. People don’t realize it but coffee has as much if not more caffeine than energy drinks. For non coffee drinkers it’s enough to throw a person into a panic attack.
Also, super sugary drinks mask the “bite” of caffeine and make it much easier to over-consume. Most people would balk at a 32oz cup of coffee, (a Starbucks venti is 20oz) but 32oz is a pretty common “large” size soda in America; I can walk into any gas station and find a 32oz soda cup. If I drank a single one of those, it would be equivalent to ~4 cups of coffee in a single drink. That’s more coffee than I’d normally drink all day, and it’s all in a single cup.
Maybe I need to rethink my coffee consumption
Thanks for sharing! It’s cool to see Dr mike there, too!