Image Credits: @pedrotheartist on Unsplash (Unsplash License)

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In October 2023, news broke that Panera Bread was facing a wrongful death lawsuit over their Charged Lemonade beverage. Since then, two more lawsuits regarding the drink have been filed. These lawsuits come over a year after the bakery chain first released the Charged Lemonade in early 2022. The drink comes in sweet, fruity flavors like mango yuzu citrus, strawberry lemon mint, and blood orange, and it contains high levels of caffeine. According to the Panera Bread website, a regular 20 fluid ounce cup of Charged Lemonade contains 157 milligrams of caffeine and a large 30 fluid ounce cup contains 236 milligrams. This information is according to current signs, however, earlier nutritional information on the drink had the regular at 260 milligrams of caffeine and the large at 390 milligrams. 

Even before the lawsuits were filed, the Charged Lemonade went viral online for its high caffeine content. Users pointed to the intense effects that the drinks caused. In a viral TikTok, a woman, Sarah Baus, explained that before she knew how much caffeine was in the drink, she would use her free refills to have four to five cups of the Charged Lemonade while doing work inside the store. She explained how she always felt jittery and energetic when she was drinking them, before realizing that the Charged Lemonades have as much caffeine as four espressos in one cup. 

These recent lawsuits and the conversation surrounding Panera’s Charged Lemonade bring up larger questions about the responsibilities of consumers and sellers.

Three Lawsuits 

Sarah Katz was a 21-year-old student at the University of Pennsylvania with a pre-existing heart condition. Upon advice of her doctor, she avoided drinks with large amounts of caffeine, especially energy drinks. In September of 2022, Katz passed away after suffering from cardiac arrest, and in October 2023, Katz’s family filed a lawsuit claiming that the death was the result of Panera Bread’s Charged Lemonade. 

According to the lawsuit and the family’s lawyer, the medical examiner’s report attributed the cause of death to be cardiac arrhythmia, which was caused by long QT Type 1 syndrome, a condition Ms. Katz had since she was young. This happened after she drank a Charged Lemonade from Panera earlier in the day. According to the lawsuit, after she had the drink, she suffered from cardiac arrest which sent her to the hospital, and then suffered from another one, which ultimately led to her passing away. 

The complaint points to Panera’s branding and marketing of the lemonade as being at fault for Ms. Katz’s death, citing its placement adjacent to non caffeinated drinks and not being marketed as an energy drink. It also points to the fact that Ms. Katz was part of Panera’s Sip Club, a program that lets customers have free refills of their drink at self-serve stations, including the Charged Lemonade. This means that Ms. Katz could have had dangerous amounts of caffeine without any precautions taken by the restaurant to ensure her safety. These facts, along with the little regulation of exact caffeine content—as the drink is mixed in-house—and Panera Bread’s lack of warning of a high caffeine content, are used to argue that Ms. Katz suffered from a wrongful death. 

After the lawsuit was filed, Panera changed the labels on their charged lemonade, making sure to warn consumers of the high caffeine risk. They told consumers who were pregnant, had heart problems, or were sensitive to caffeine to not consume the drink. This, however, did not stop a second lawsuit from being filed. 

In December 2023, the second lawsuit against Panera was filed. This lawsuit was filed after 46-year-old Dennis Brown passed away in October 2023 while walking home from a Panera Bread. The lawsuit claimed that this, too, was a wrongful death, as Mr. Brown had a medical history of high blood pressure that influenced him to avoid energy drinks. As the complaint says, Mr. Brown was a loyal customer to Panera Bread due to their branding as a “clean” fast food chain. He’d started drinking Panera’s Charged Lemonade in late September 2023, and over the course of two weeks, continued to order the drink every couple of days. On October 9th, after work, Mr. Brown went to Panera and ordered a Charged Lemonade. According to the lawsuit, in the 90 minutes that Mr. Brown was there, due to his Unlimited Sip Club membership and the lack of regulation around how the drink was served, Mr. Brown refilled his Charged Lemonade twice, meaning he drank three Charged Lemonades in total. On his walk home, Mr. Brown collapsed and “suffered a cardiac event.” By the time the authorities arrived on the scene, Mr. Brown was already dead. 

The lawsuit points to similar points as were made in the Katz case to argue for wrongful death. By not warning consumers enough about the high caffeine content and failing to market the drink as an energy drink, Panera Bread was liable for Brown’s death.

Amid the rising controversy after two wrongful deaths were alleged, the new year did not bring any relief to Panera Bread, as a third lawsuit was filed against the chain in January 2024. This time, the lawsuit was not wrongful death, but it claimed that Panera Bread’s Charged Lemonade had given someone permanent heart problems. 

Lauren Skerritt is a 28-year-old occupational therapist in Rhode Island. Before drinking the Charged Lemonade last year, she was a healthy, active athlete with no underlying health problems. However, after drinking two and a half Charged Lemonades, her first time trying the drink, Mrs. Skerritt began having heart palpitations that sent her to the emergency room the next day. Tests came back to show that she had atrial fibrillation, a condition causing irregular heartbeats, which can lead to blood clots, strokes, and other serious conditions. Mrs. Skerritt continues to have health problems to this day, and the lawsuit alleges that this is due to Panera Bread’s Charged Lemonade.

Mrs. Skerritt’s lawsuit brings up the same points as Ms. Katz’s and Mr. Brown’s suits: the high caffeine content, the lack of proper labeling of the drink, and the marketing of Panera Bread as a whole and of their Charged Lemonade. 

The Legality of the Lawsuits 

In the months following the controversy surrounding the lawsuits, Panera has changed the labeling of the Charged Lemonade, making sure to warn customers of the high caffeine content and warning children, pregnant and nursing mothers, and anyone sensitive to caffeine to not drink the Charged Lemonade. While Panera Bread has made these changes, in a statement to NBC News, Panera stated that they did not believe that their drink was the cause of Ms. Katz’s death, and they continue to maintain their position that the Charged Lemonade is safe for consumers. Despite the changes made to the Charged Lemonade, which seem like, under conventional wisdom, an admission of guilt, the “subsequent remedial measures rule” means that neither the plaintiffs nor the defendant can use these changes as proof of wrongdoing.

Panera’s consistent stance that their Charged Lemonade had nothing to do with the deaths of Ms. Katz or Mr. Brown suggests that the two wrongful death lawsuits will be tried in court instead of being settled through negotiations. Therefore, a new question arises: do the lawsuits have any merit to them, and can they win in court?

To prove wrongful death in court, two things must be true: first, that someone else’s actions, whether intentional or through carelessness, caused the death of the decedent, and second, that the surviving family members suffered some type of harm from this death. 

While the two cases are not identical and do not bring identical charges, much of the logical reasoning behind proving wrongful death is the same in both cases. Both cases argue that there was a wrongful death because of negligence and deception by the company. 

Panera Bread could be found negligent in protecting its customers from harm. The large Charged Lemonade had 390 milligrams of caffeine (though it has since been lowered), which is more than three times the amount in a 12 fluid ounce can of Redbull, and is just below what the Food and Drug Administration considers to be the safe threshold of caffeine consumption in a day. It could be argued that any large chain like Panera Bread should have been aware that a drink such as the Charged Lemonade could be highly dangerous to certain individuals. Therefore, they should have taken due diligence to take proper precautions and warn consumers of the risks beforehand. The fact that Panera Bread did not take those steps could be considered negligence, and it is one of the arguments that the plaintiffs are bringing forward. 

The plaintiffs are also arguing that Panera Bread’s marketing of the Charged Lemonade was misleading and that it led to the wrongful deaths of Katz and Brown and the health problems of Skerritt. This part of the case hinges on the fact that the Charged Lemonades were marketed as “plant-based” and “clean,” and still are today on the Panera website. This, combined with the fact that Panera has a reputation as a restaurant chain that is more natural and healthy than other alternatives on the market, makes the Charged Lemonade seem like a healthy alternative that may have caffeine, but is more lemonade than is “charged.” Without labeling the drink as an energy drink with high levels of caffeine, Panera Bread may have inadvertently encouraged customers to drink more than was safe, which led to the deaths and health problems that the three lawsuits describe.

The second part of the proof, namely the damages, is not as complicated to prove, as the harm, both emotional and financial, is fairly straightforward. The fight in court, then, will most likely be centered on proving that it was the actions of Panera Bread that led directly to the deaths of Katz and Brown and—if Skettitt’s case goes to trial instead of being settled—the health problems of Skerritt.

While the above arguments do provide a compelling case against Panera, the company could also have a strong case. After all, even before the lawsuits, Panera Bread did label the caffeine content of the drinks. While they did not have any labels calling it an energy drink, the nutritional facts were never once hidden. Can Panera really be blamed for autonomous adults choosing to buy their drinks? Does all the responsibility lay one Panera Bread? Or do consumers have the responsibility to regulate their own consumption?

Panera Bread’s fight with these lawsuits will most likely be detrimental to its public image. Previous cases similar to Panera’s have not usually turned out well for the companies who face them, especially when those companies choose to go to trial instead of settling. Perhaps the most famous example of this is McDonald’s. In 1992, a woman sued McDonald’s after she’d accidentally spilled coffee on herself, resulting in 16% of her body suffering from third-degree burns. Despite the plaintiff being willing to settle, McDonald’s refused and sought a trial, which resulted in them having to pay a total of $3 million. They were found liable due to their corporate policy that required the coffee to be served at a temperature that was far too hot for any person to consume. 

Whether Panera settles the Skerritt case or goes to trial, and the outcome of the two wrongful death lawsuits, continues to be up in the air. One thing is sure, though, the results of these lawsuits will not only change how Panera Bread behaves, but will also set a precedent for other companies and consumers to follow.

Larger Implications

As energy drinks continue to grow in popularity, the lawsuits facing Panera Bread could only be the start of lawsuits concerning caffeination and safety. In fact, there have recently been lawsuits against Prime Hydration LLC over the company’s energy drink, Prime Energy. The company, started by popular YouTube stars Logan Paul and KSI, markets to a young audience, which the complaint claims is dangerous due to Prime Energy’s high caffeine content. 

As lawsuits like these continue to crop up, how Panera Bread handles these lawsuits, and the outcomes of the lawsuits will impact the precedent for how consumer and company responsibility is assumed and understood.