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.
Because they sell what looks and tastes like normal lemonade, without any safeguards to make sure you don’t accidentally drink four times the daily recommended limit in one sitting. The signs display the caffeine content in small text next to the calories, which you and I both know that nobody who doesn’t count their calories reads. It’s called “charged” lemonade, in small yellow text on the green sign. It’s perfectly reasonable to assume that the lemonade in that lemonade dispenser is normal lemonade.
But why hold them accountable? Starbucks wouldn’t be in trouble if you drank 90 oz of coffee!
Coffee obviously has caffeine, it’s the kind of inseparable from the concept of it. Same goes to a lesser extent with many sodas–anyone who has to watch their caffeine likely knows that coke and doctor pepper have caffeine. But lemonade? Who sells caffeinated lemonade? I guess G-Fuel does, but someone with a heart condition probably knows not to order G-Fuel.
Lemonade is the safe choice when you don’t want caffeine, because to my knowledge nobody (besides Panera bread) has ever sold caffeinated lemonade out of self-service dispensers.