Common Assignment Podcast

Panera Bread is facing a lawsuit filed by the family of Sarah Katz, a victim who suffered cardiac arrest after drinking their charged lemonade beverages. The lawsuit alleges that the drinks have no warning about the risks of ingesting so much caffeine and stimulants. Panera Bread workers make the lemonades from concentrate, which can lead to variations in caffeine concentration. Sarah Katz had a heart condition and was cautious about her caffeine intake. Panera Bread marketed the lemonades as having clean caffeine, but the caffeine content is much higher than their dark roast coffee. The lawsuit claims that the drinks are defective energy drinks with no warning of side effects. Panera Bread argues that it is the consumer's responsibility to be aware of the caffeine content and make informed choices. The debate is ongoing, but Panera Bread has issued warnings about the caffeine content of the lemonades. The plaintiff argues that the drinks should be clearly labeled as energy drinks. Hello, my name is Darcy Reese and I am a marketing major at Temple's Fox School of Business. This is for the Common Assignment for Legal and Ethical Reasoning in Business. So the law that got my attention as soon as I heard about it and what I'm talking about today is a lawsuit against Panera Bread filed for a wrongful death. So the plaintiff is the victim, Sarah Katz's family, who suffered two cardiac arrests after drinking Panera's charged lemonade beverages. So to introduce the topic, identify key terms, and provide relevant background information. To start, Panera launched their charged lemonades in 2022. A large size lemonade is 30 ounces and has about 390 milligrams of caffeine. So this amount of caffeine is more than 12 ounce Red Bull and a 16 ounce Monster combined, or four or five regular cups of coffee. So these lemonades went viral with customers issuing warnings and experiences with the drink specifically on TikTok. Some shared stories about drinking multiple cups before realizing how much caffeine is in it. The lawsuit alleges that the drinks have no warning of any risks of ingesting so much caffeine with so many stimulants and so much sugar. Another fact of the matter is that Panera Bread workers are the ones who make the charged lemonades out of concentrate from a bottle mixed with water. So there is room for error in the preparation method if they have no way of checking the concentration of the lemonades or if they're just not monitoring it properly. And obviously more concentration means more caffeine in the drinks. And so if the workers' measurements are off, then the signs are false advertising. So Sarah Katz was the victim. She was a 21-year-old attending the University of Pennsylvania. Katz had a heart condition called Long QT Syndrome Type 1, which makes her heart beat faster and puts her at more risk for stimulants such as caffeine. So she was always told to avoid that from her doctors and she was very good at that according to friends and family. And so she bought like an unlimited sips, I don't know the exact word for it, but she bought the unlimited drink refills from Panera Bread and she bought a charged lemonade from a restaurant on September 10th, 2022 and then went into cardiac arrest hours later. So family of Sarah says she was always aware of what she was doing to keep herself safe and how much caffeine she's ingesting. She would stay away from energy drinks and coffee and her friends and family said that if she had known what was in the drink, she never would have drank it. So the restaurant refers to their charged lemonades as the ultimate energy drink on their website. Yet in the store, they don't call it an energy drink anywhere on the signs. So the family claims that the reasonable consumer is not going to go on the website and compare it to see whether or not there is additional information, which I would like to just add in unless they are given a reason to research it further. Okay, so if we look at this through the stakeholder of the plaintiff, through the perspective of the plaintiff. So from a marketing standpoint, the lemonades never claim to be an energy drink on the sign or in person at restaurants. It was offered side by side with the non or less caffeinated drinks and was advertised as quote unquote clean caffeine. Panera Bread advertised the lemonades as having as much caffeine as the restaurant's dark roast coffee. Now this causes confusion to consumers because their largest size of dark roast coffee is measuring at 268 mg of caffeine, while the lemonade is 30 oz at 390 mg of caffeine, not to mention the equivalent of nearly 30 teaspoons of sugar and other stimulants in the lemonade. So it's not a direct comparison because the sizes are different and it's misleading to consumers to say it's the same due to the other stimulants in the lemonade and just the larger sizes. So the lawsuit alleges that the charged lemonade is a defective energy drink and the unregulated beverage does not have a warning of dangerous side effects anywhere on it. So when someone goes to the grocery store and they pick up a can of Red Bull, it says clearly on the can the caffeine count, ounces per can, and quote unquote not recommended for children, pregnant or nursing women, and persons sensitive to caffeine, unquote. On Monster cans it says quote consume responsibly, not recommended for children, people sensitive to caffeine, unquote, etc. You get the gist, okay? So looking at the labels for charged lemonades on the actual sign in stores, mind you, it says 20 fluid ounce, 280 calories, 260 mg of caffeine, and 30 fluid ounce, 430 calories, 390 mg of caffeine. It says, and then it says plant-based, clean caffeine powered by guarana and green coffee extract. So it does label the caffeine count but not in the way that energy drinks do, the way that they probably should be labeled. So it's just different, they don't have a label on there, they don't have any sort of warning for the caffeine, which is usually seen on energy drinks, so you would think that it's not an energy drink because it doesn't say a caffeine warning. It is also worth mentioning that Sarah Katz was an avid Gatorade drinker, which is also marketed as a charged drink due to the electrolytes in it, but it doesn't have caffeine in it. And so because charged is such a loose, it has such a loose definition when it comes to marketing, it can be easy to mix up what the drinks are, because in reality charged is a figurative sort of adjective, and a drink isn't really charged, that's not a thing. So since she drank Gatorade, she figured that the charged lemonade was a sort of electrolyte drink, that's what some sources say. So moving on to the argument of Panera Bread's perspective. So the victim in this case did have a heart condition, and she knew she was ordered to stay away from energy drinks and just caffeine overall. She always did stay away from caffeine, so it was her responsibility to look at the numbers and say, I don't drink Monster, which has 100 milligrams of caffeine, I don't drink Red Bull, which has 80 milligrams of caffeine, why would I drink this charged lemonade that has 390 milligrams of caffeine? She didn't necessarily look at the numbers, she didn't quantify it maybe, because Panera Bread does put how much caffeine is in one drink at the bottom of the sign. They're being sued due to false advertising, and alleged that consumers are not provided a factual basis for understanding the risk involved in so much caffeine, sorry, caffeine stimulants and sugar. So just in my experience, from my perspective, I'm aware of what caffeine I'm taking, especially depending on the time of day. So if I walked into a Panera Bread at 7 or 8 p.m., I would stick to a soft drink, since I'm unfamiliar with what their teas are and their lemonades, and I don't really know that kind of thing. Same thing with a Starbucks or a Dunkin Donuts or any sort of cafe that sells their own specialty drinks that I don't really know what's in them. I also think there are some keywords that maybe hint at caffeine that customers should be a little bit more aware of, so words like charged, wake up, fuel, perk, energy, and refresher. One of these words directly mean that there's caffeine in them, it could very well be decaf. However, when you're conscious about what caffeine you're drinking, and if you're like, I cannot have caffeine, you probably won't gravitate towards a charged drink, like G-Fuel, just something like that. Now, does that mean that every single consumer thinks like that and researches their drinks before they drink them? No, but they should, and in a perfect world, customers would be more sensitive to keywords so that businesses wouldn't have to put exactly what is on drinks and drinks on the sign. Furthermore, it does say the caffeine count on the signs, just like I said, so just because it doesn't scream at your face, energy drink, doesn't mean it's decaf, it never does, plus she knew she had a heart condition and she still did not research the drink before ordering and consuming it. So it is a personal responsibility for her to check her own food and beverages and make sure that it is safe to consume. So there are different ways to look at it. So just so far in the debate, it's still going on, they have not reached a conclusion yet. Panera Bread has issued a warning about its lemonade and the caffeine content and cautioned that it should be consumed in moderation, with disclaimers that it is not meant for children, people sensitive to caffeine, pregnant or nursing women, so pretty much what is on an energy drink bottle. From when they first launched the lemonades, I thought the caffeine count was very high personally, since I'm aware of how much caffeine is in drinks and I like to know what's in a drink before I drink it. I kind of know the different numbers and I thought it was pretty high, 390mg, that is a lot more than what I typically consume, but I didn't think much of it because companies sell what consumers want. But personally, I just always saw the high caffeine count as an energy drink. So after hearing about this lawsuit, I realized that they don't market it as an energy drink anywhere really. Now again, they have started to, but before the lawsuit, they didn't have it anywhere on the signs. I still don't believe they do have energy drink anywhere on the signs or the posters in stores, I think they only changed the website so far. But the product itself is not dangerous to the average consumer. So that's where I disagree with the plaintiffs, is that it's not a dangerous product, it's just they need to make sure that their consumers are actually aware of what it is that they are consuming. So my thoughts are that people will still buy it if it is marketed as an energy drink. The energy drinking cafe business is very popular among young adults and probably among the same people who are going to Panera Breads either way. Calling the lemonade a clean energy drink that will help you keep charged all day, it will still pay the bills. People will still buy that. I'm sorry, I'm getting over a cold. I do think that the drink was marketed poorly due to how many customers shared stories about their experiences of negative effects, as well as just not being able to, or sorry, not labeling it in stores as an energy drink. I think in this case, Panera assumes the buyers of the drink will be knowledgeable on the nutrition facts when in reality, most customers will just go and fill their cup with whatever sounds good, sounds tastiest. They might not be reading even what the flavors are. So I think that Panera should and will be held accountable for false advertising or just not specifying that the drink has these potential side effects to high risk people. However, the case of Sarah Katz was a very rare case in the way that she knew she had a heart condition and still drank a lemonade without reading the nutrition facts. So I still don't see the lemonades as a dangerous product once they're labeled properly and consumers are aware of how much caffeine is in them. So that wraps up my presentation, but there's still, you know, this is still a new lawsuit, so they're still figuring it all out, but I found it super interesting and I'm glad that I could research this further.