Fucking lol

Right? I've never gone for an overdose, but I have had jangly eyeballs once or twice.

Sounds delicious.

If you've ever had a large coffee, it's like that. If you've ever had 3 large coffees and a heart condition, the same principle applies.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who keeps seeing these stories and immediately wanting to go try it.

Or like those worker safety counters: XX Days Since Last Lost-Life Lemonade Accident

Big Four Loko energy here.

Panera's MURDER lemonade. So good it'll kill you!! Buy one, get one on Mondays!

How much you want to bet that Heart Attack Grill is going to run with that idea.

The same reason a sandwich restaurant uses only bread that is legally classified as cake

It's not so caffeinated, it's about as much caffeine per ounce as coffee

It's not a dangerous drink for the majority of the population. Dude had known medical issues that caffeine can cause issues with, and drank an unreasonable amount of it.

400mg of caffeine is the daily maximum dose recommended by several health organizations. And that's for healthy adults. Keep in mind that one charged lemonade had more caffeine than a full can of Red Bull, and a full can of Monster combined. It also contained a lot of taurine which increases the effect of caffeine.

The charged lemonade does not taste caffeinated, and there were basically no warnings about it in store. The marketing and in store branding made it seem like a sort of Gatorade, i.e. an electrolyte drink.

It was also sold next to the fruit juices and such. Which would imply less caffeine.

It was also part of the unlimited sips program, providing free refills. Drinking two or three would cause a healthy adult to start having heart palpitations, and those who are at risk would go into cardiac arrest after one (which is what happened with the first death)

Since the first death, Panera has reduced the amount of caffeine in the lemonade, and many stores have started putting it behind the counter rather than out in the open. They've also added warnings about the caffeine content of the drinks, but still don't warn about the compounding effects of taurine.

These lawsuits are likely going to be settled out of court, because Panera did fuck up here, and they also don't want the bad press of multiple deaths linked to their overly caffeinated drink.

https://youtu.be/N4wW85WZMJQ this video is probably not the best source, but it outlines the fundamental issue, which is mostly that people don't expect lemonade to be caffeinated and the labeling for it, although present, doesn't highlight it at all.

Because he had high blood pressure, he did not consume energy drinks, it adds.

It explains it right there. He drank them without realizing what he was consuming because apparently it isn't obvious that it's an energy drink.

They failed to properly set expectations. It was self-serve and publicly available, right next to other juices and teas. The expectation of customers, right or wrong, is that those sorts of products and placements mean that you can consume them at a fairly high rate.

They know their customer base, and know that their customer base regularly refills their drinks at the self-service station. They then created a drink that is unsafe to refill, as it would cause you to breach the maximum daily recommended dose.

Because the drink was not clearly marked as being dangerous, a good article on this: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/panera-adds-warning-caffeinated-lemonade-stores-lawsuit-customers-deat-rcna122628

If you want the tldr: the "lemonade" was located next to regular drinks and "Photos ... show it was advertised as “plant-based and clean,” containing as much caffeine as the restaurant’s dark roast coffee.".

Apparently Panera's defence is that each customer should look up and read the detailed ingredient list and have enough specialized nutritional knowledge to know which dosages constitute a danger to their life.

390mg of caffeine on the lemonade. Who ever expects lemonade to have caffeine let alone 390mg? It's fucking insane. A can of coke has 35mg and thats enough to give me anxiety, sweats and tension. If I drank that thinking it was lemonade I would be fucked at another level.

They never disclosed how much caffeine/sugar was in the drink till after the first death. Too much caffeine can kill you.

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.