Panera Bread settled a wrongful death lawsuit days before a scheduled trial following the death of an Ivy League student who drank a highly caffeinated beverage from the restaurant.
The family of 21-year old University of Pennsylvania student Sarah Katz sued the company in 2023 following the young woman’s 2022 death after she went into cardiac arrest shortly after drinking a Charged Lemonade.
Katz, who had a heart condition called long QT syndrome type 1, had avoided consuming energy drinks per a doctor’s orders.
“In LQT1, the potassium ion channels in the heart do not work properly, disrupting the heart’s electrical activity,” which can lead to “arrhythmias (abnormal heartbeat),” according to Stanford Medicine.
Katz’ family accused Panera Bread of not adequately warning customers about the drink’s ingredients.
According to the lawsuit, the Charged Lemonade was advertised as having as much caffein as a dark roast coffee; it actually had roughly 390 mg of caffeine, 30 teaspoons of sugar and guarana extract, a stimulant found in energy drinks that is dangerous in large amounts. The caffeine level was roughly four times as much as a cup of coffee or Red Bull.
The restaurant and beverages have been blamed for the death of Dennis Brown, a 46-year-old Florida man, and for causing heart injuries in previously healthy people in three other lawsuits. Those lawsuits are still pending.
Terms of the settlement were not made public. Jury selection had been scheduled for this week.
In response to the lawsuits and injury complaints, the company vowed to investigate the matter and added warnings to the beverage’s cup labels and more signage about its caffein content and nutritional information. At one point, it moved the Charged Lemonades behind the counter so customers could not serve themselves.
Panera Bread removed the beverages from its menu in May 2024 but said the decision was based on a “recent menu transformation.”