Luke Adams, Monroeville, Pennsylvania files lawsuit after drinking Panera highly caffeinated energy drink lemonade and going into cardiac arrest in latest incident surrounding drink that has led to at least 4 lawsuits and two deaths.
Panera is facing another lawsuit over its highly caffeinated energy drink lemonade beverages, which the brand recently discontinued after multiple lawsuits over the drink.
Attorneys for Pennsylvania teen Luke Adams filed a complaint on Monday, May 20, alleging that the 18-year-old went into cardiac arrest hours after drinking Panera’s Charged Lemonade on the evening of March 9th.
The lawsuit alleged that Adams, a high school student, purchased a large (30 ounce) Mango Yuzu Citrus Charged Lemonade, which was served to him by a Panera store employee in Monroeville, Penn, NBC News reported.
Panera energy drink implicated in number of accidents and deaths
Several hours after drinking the lemonade, Adams went to a see movie, and about two and a half hours in, one of his friends noticed him ‘making unusual sounds,’ according to the complaint. Attorneys wrote that after Adams went into cardiac arrest, two nurses and a cardiologist who happened to be attending the movie began performing CPR on him.
He was then rushed to the hospital, receiving shocks from a defibrillator en route. He later suffered two seizures, according to the suit.
Since being introduced to the Panera menu, the energy drink lemonade has been implicated in a number of accidents and deaths.
The teen’s suit is at least the fourth lawsuit filed against the bakery-cafe chain over the drink, which previous suits have blamed for two deaths and a woman’s permanent health problems according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Attorneys for Adams included his medical notes in court documents, which state that his cardiac arrest may have been triggered by ‘heavy caffeine intake’ and that the seizures were the result of ‘unclear etiology, possibly related to cardiac arrest secondary to caffeine intake from Panera Charged Lemonade.’
Near death and actual deaths following consuming Panera energy drink
The suit also alleged that Adams purchased the drink without knowing ‘that the Charged Lemonade was a super energy drink.’ The restaurant lists a large Charged Lemonade as having 237 milligrams of caffeine with ice.
‘Luke Adams’ case is a tragic example of why the Panera Charged Lemonade is an inherently dangerous product and needed to be removed from the market,’ a lawyer for Adams told PEOPLE in a statement. ‘Clearly, the product’s ‘warning’ was ineffective. Luke was a healthy 18-year-old with no underlying medical conditions before he drank one large Panera Charged Lemonade and went into cardiac arrest.’
‘He was about as close as you can come to being dead,’ said Andrew Pogozelski, chief of cardiology at Allegheny Health Network’s Forbes Hospital in Monroeville. ‘This was about as unlucky as you can get for this to happen to an 18-year-old, otherwise healthy person — but about as lucky as you can get for people in the movie theater to know what they were doing.’
Panera has denied wrongdoing in legal documents. It did not immediately respond to media overture for comment following Monday’s lawsuit.
In October, the parents of 21-year-old Sarah Katz sued the restaurant chain, claiming that the highly caffeinated beverage played a role in her September 2022 death.
The teenager was diagnosed with Long QT Type 1 Syndrome when she was 5 years old and allegedly purchased Panera’s Charged Lemonade ‘reasonably confident it was a traditional lemonade and/or electrolyte sports drink containing a reasonable amount of caffeine safe for her to drink.’
While some Panera locations responded to Katz’s death by putting up warnings about the amount of caffeine in the drink near its dispensers, the food chain faced more legal troubles in December 2023, when the family of 46-year-old Florida resident Dennis Brown sued Panera claiming that his October 2023 death occurred he consumed three cups of the Charged Lemonade.
The Food and Drug Administration says healthy adults can safely consume up to 400 milligrams of caffeine a day. After it was sued, Panera put more detailed disclosures in all of its restaurants and on its website warning customers to consume Charged Lemonade in moderation, saying it is not recommended for children, people sensitive to caffeine or pregnant or nursing women.
Panera also moved the Charged Lemonade behind the counter so it was no longer self-serve and updated its nutrition information to reflect how much caffeine is in the drink with ice before deciding to discontinue the drink following the latest incident.
