Family files lawsuit against Panera Bread after college student who drank ‘charged lemonade’ dies
nbcnews.com
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
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I hope this lawsuit forces them to remove this. I'm sorry this young girl died. This isn't the first issue they had with this drink. My husband and I were discussing it months ago. He thought it was just lemonade - sugar, water, lemons. We didn't figure out why he was up all night. Later someone old him how much caffeine it has. We had no idea. It's dangerous to those with high bp.
I'm not going to lie when I first read the headline I thought this was probably a frivolous lawsuit but after reading the article I thought that stuff should get pulled.
It's like that McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit. Poor lady was made a mockery of for ordering hot coffee because it sounds ridiculous at first but she had 2nd degree burns. It was recklessly hot, as was this drink recklessly produced and marketed.
3rd degree groin burns that required grafts.
She initially asked for just 20k to cover her medical bills, and they instead offered like $800.
Also of note, that huge 2.7mil fine the jury found? Just the profits from 2 days of McDonald's coffee sales. The judge reduced it to $650k, but even that likely wasent paid as they settled out of court at that point.
It was also discovered that McDonald's was aware of the danger of serving their coffee that hot, yet they continued to do so because it meant they had to give fewer free refills. If you have to wait 20 minutes for your coffee to cool down before you drink it, you're going to get less refills overall
IIRC their explanation was for take away, keeping the coffee hotter so it would last until you got home.
I thought the specific wording in their documentation was because they wanted the smell of the coffee to fill the restaurant. Did McDonald's give refills of coffee?
The McDonald's lady's case blew up because the jury slapped McDonald's with huge punitive damages. If she would have gotten the 10-30k she asked for initially or even just the 125k for actual damages no one would care about the case. But the 2.7 million in punitive damages just make this lawsuit seem frivolous. But she had no control over that.
And IIRC one big reason why she won was because the cups weren't suited for holding such hot liquid. The temperature of coffee didn't decrease in McDonald's after the lawsuit.
There were several factors at once. Serving to a customer at 180+ is a bit high. And that particular machine was slightly overcalibrated. It was 193 degrees if I recall, not 180-190. And then, yeah, the cups are crap.
I didn't fully appreciate our mouth's tolerance to temperature until I was lazy the other day and used my finger to stir some tea instead of going back to the kitchen and getting a spoon.
Blazing hot for a finger, nice and refreshing for a drink
Gonna suggest it's less simple than that. The mouth only touches a small amount of fluid at once. The temperature plummets really quickly when you sip the hot coffee.
When you stick a finger in the coffee, there's a lot more coffee keeping the liquid contacting your finger hot. That's why you sip hot coffee. If you do a quick dip with your finger, it won't burn.
It's similar to how you can accidentally brush a hot pan and not get a burn.
That is also very true
Funny you should mention that. I use to work for the franchise owner who's brother-in-law (who also worked for the franchise) gave that woman the cup of coffee (or so he would say) when they were franchising with McDonalds. And guess where I was working at the time? Panera
Where are you working now I’m sure this streak isn’t over.
If I had to guess based on external evidence, maybe Congress?
Okay that’s fucking funny.
It also explains why the coffee is so bad. Heating coffee above a certain temp is just burning it.
It should be brewed at 195-205 F, just a bit higher than McDonalds served it.
But normally it would quickly cool down after it’s brewed. Any burning from reaching that temp is from a hot plate exceeding the temp and burning the bits of oil and soot that are in contact with the plate. Water, and I assume coffee, can’t be heated above boiling at 212 F anyway, but the hot plate and carafe or urn parts can, and steam can, and oil can.
Anyway I’m just saying it would be reasonable for fresh and good-tasting coffee to be in that temperature range. But it’s only going to stay there for any length of time if it’s burned on a hot plate or, more ideally, dripped directly into an insulated container.
It’s more likely their coffee tastes like shit because it was badly roasted, ground months ago, has since gone stale and bitter, and is full of unnecessary added chemicals and preservatives, just like the rest of their shit food.
If I remember correctly, her labia got fused together... Super fucked up burns.
Do a bit of research into the marketing actually used for this drink. Assuming the store uses the standard Panera marketing, there's a big sign on the dispenser saying how much caffeine is in it. It's a tragic mistake, but unless that location uniquely screwed up, that's all it is.
Another commentor said their husband ordered it thinking it was a regular lemonade. The issue could be more wide spread than a single store.
I noted that. Yet another commentor linked to a vlog where the signs weren't present because the dispensers were behind the counter and had to be ordered. I think there are absolutely locations NOT showing the marketing.
But please check out the other comments here and see the one showing what the dispensers with signs look like. Those are BIG signs with BIG mention of caffeine.
I don't think they're legally liable after what I've read through and personally experienced -- but I absolutely don't think this is a frivolous lawsuit. It's still worth merit when it comes to signage and frankly medical testing.
The biggest problem is that she drank it without knowing the heart condition. We need to have better detection and screening to make sure people know this.
From the article:
I don't mind it existing as a product. If it does though it should be very clearly labeled with warnings that are impossible to miss. This seems great for Panaras on college campuses, but there should be no possibility you confuse it for something else.
More caffeine than two energy drinks combined seems very excessive to me.
So are you suggesting we ban coffee, which typically has more caffeine than this drink?
What coffee are you drinking that has almost 400mg of caffeine in it? Most have around 100mg.
Most light- to medium-roasts approach 150mg/250mL. The one I'm baselining is Dunkin Donuts, the most popular coffee in the US. A standard Large Iced has almost 400mg of caffeine. You can order it with a shot of espresso, if you like.
We have to remember that the drink she was consuming (multiple times) was a 30oz. There are very few coffees with less than 350-400mg of caffeine in a 24oz size (or smaller)
How many people are confusing a large iced coffee with a shot of espresso as a caffeine free beverage?
Wondering the context of this question, considering the topic of this particular chain. Someone said 400mg is excessive, and then someone else doubled-down that they thought coffee didn't have 400mg of caffeine.
And if it helps you feel better, this actually is coffee. It's the same green coffee extract that Starbucks Refreshers use, more of it (ironically, Starbucks no longer advertises that their refreshers are caffeinated like they used to despite the fact they are).
Interesting. I tried to find an informative link about green coffee extract, and I stumbled into this. People are acting like that lemonade is this stuff. LOL
You used the size of the lemonade to argue its caffeine content was not excessive given the lemonade was larger in volume than a comparable coffee beverage.
But the topic of this chain started with the girl not realizing the drink was caffeinated to begin with.
The context of my question was calling into doubt the relevance of caffeine to volume ratio in defining “excessive” when the underlying issue was accidental consumption due to (alleged) poor product labeling.
Given she had a heart condition, any amount seems to have been “excessive”.
I think you just made the mistake of conceding my whole point. Yes, if she shouldn't have had ANY caffeine, we have a problem. And the problem is that she walked to a self-service area where over 90% of the beverages are caffeinated (they have maybe 2 or 3 things that aren't, tops?), and she filled her cup with the ONLY one that explicitly advertised being caffeinated.
Back to your question:
Yet again, I don't think this question is relevant ESPECIALLY now that you conceded that the amount of caffeine is irrelevant and not problematic. But here's the key quotes of the thread, and why I felt your question was out-of-touch:
Note, you just accepted my side of the underlying discussion as fact because it didn't matter to your new point. That's how I know your reply was a context-switch.
Can you show me where I conceded your point? That was not my intention, as I do not concede your point. To the contrary, I assume the “typical” coffee contains far less than 400mg of caffeine.
I further do not concede that the drink was adequately labeled as caffeinated. Not because I know it wasnt, I don’t, but since the girl knew she couldn’t have caffeine it seems unlikely she would intentionally ignore information about caffeine content that was adequately marked.
It’s possible she was being generally unobservant, maybe even fair to assume it, but that just brings us back around to the only point I’ve tried to make. It’s reasonable to assume lemonade is not caffeinated since AFAIK it’s pretty much always uncaffeinated. So it doesn’t necessarily matter how many beverages at the self serve were caffeinated because who has ever heard of caffeinated lemonade?
There’s no calculation she should have been expected to assume re: caffeine to volume ratio of lemonade so it’s not a stretch that she wouldn’t think to check.
The fact that any amount would have been too much was just a compounding factor in a tragedy.
The average cup of coffee has about 95mg of caffeine (found it: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/caffeine/art-20049372). So each of these lemonades she drank was over 4 cups of coffee.
If she was able to miss the labeling, which is reasonable to assume - bc she would she ignore it on purpose? - then it would have been very easy for her to ingest an extreme amount of caffeine in a short period of time, which is what I assume happened.
Sure! This is where you conceded the only point I cared about discussing here.
You don’t seem to actually want to discuss the implications of that point. Take care.
Yeah, I also wasn’t aware. I imagine there were signs, but who looks for the caffeine content of lemonade? In my case I just had a dash t flavor soda, so I didn’t notice until my kid pointed it out
Similarly, when my kids were little, I kept them away from stimulants, but who expects to have to prohibit lemonade for the caffeine hit?
Why didn't you read the very clear, explicit label?
What very clear, explicit label?
"Plant based and clean with as much caffeine as our dark roast coffee." is the full quote. Then, it lists the specific amount of caffeine for the two sizes.
You can argue it should have a more eye-catching and cautionary presentation, but it's disingenuous to say it wasn't clear and explicit.
Forget the article; go to an actual Panera. The amount of caffeine is clearly labeled right under the name of the drink. To be fair, their drinks contain way too much, but you can't say that they don't already make the label clear and easy to interpret. People are idiots who don't read the label beyond the "lemonade" part.
I don't think it's "way too much". A large of those every morning is still under the "healthy" FDA recommendations, wherein there are zero known negative side-effects for most people.
That part. Though I don't think people realize how much caffeine is in their dark roast coffee. Because it is more caffeine than multiple energy drinks for the same volume. There's a reason a standard cup of coffee is like 6 oz instead of 20 oz.
It also includes the caffeine "dosage" in grams for those who want/need to know. That inclusion is more prominent than the description he's quoting.
Flip-side, you can't get a 6oz coffee in most of the US. The most popular coffee around me is generally sold between 20oz and 30oz sizes.
Who's serving up coffee in 6oz cups? Starbucks and most other coffee places have standard sizes of 12, 16, and 20oz.
Standard isn't what people drink. It's what the nutrition label on the package and medical guidelines are generally talking about, though. When the FDA says 4-5 cups of coffee is safe for most adults, they don't mean 48-100oz of coffee.
But as to who makes 6 oz cups? When you make coffee yourself, the cups on the coffee maker are 6 oz.