Caffeine is more unhealthy and more addictive than marijuana. So you've used drugs :)
I spent my college years being stupid-straight-edge, but downed enough caffeine to give me jitters every day. I ended up having to quit coffee for a year and have to moderate my intake so it doesn't get excessive again.
A bourbon every once in a while is NOTHING compared to that for me.
And companies used to know this. Pre-COVID, I got told on multiple occasions I wasn't being picked for a job due to my commute distance because they were afraid I would be tired or unreliable due to having to travel to work.
I left a company because traffic got worse and commute sucked, only to discover that they shut their doors a few years later because remote workers were getting more done.
It's a "tool for the job" game. I don't trust a junior developer to write a login system. I've found security flaws in login systems written by senior developers who "know what they're doing TM". Unless I'm the expert in a given domain, it's better to trust something written by those experts.
For the record (since it's fixed anyway), I discovered a common login timing vulnerability on one of our production systems that had been in place for nearly 15 years. Luckily we didn't have enough traffic for anyone to notice it before me.
Or three, there's more to the case than was reported to us. If the marketing was missing (some stores it is) she might have a case. The article makes no mention of that.
There is really no proof that the lemonade is what killed her
You don't need to look for "proof" in civil cases. If the lemonade is more likely than not to have killed her, that's enough. And I think any good lawyer can push a case like this across that bar for a typical jury.
this is just her parents wanting someone to blame.
Maybe. We don't know all the details. I'm the one arguing in favor of Panera in most comments, but I'm really arguing in favor of common sense and not inventing a clear win for either side off a small article that was lying to us.
Unless they can prove without a doubt there was negligence on Panera’s part
That's not how the law works. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" is a criminal standard. "Preponderance of evidence" is the civil standard, and it's a low bar. Honestly, if we ignore all other evidence and only point out other reasonable people in this thread who were confused about the caffeinated nature of this beverage, we would have it.
So if it hit court (it won't), Panera would likely show evidence of its marketing. The girl's parents would perhaps show evidence the marketing collateral was placed wrong or (from the article) suggest they were misleading with the "Dark Coffee" claim in the way quoted. There's several tactics they could take, honestly.
then this lawsuit is frivolous.
I would say this lawsuit is a lot of things, but frivolous isn't one of them. It's not intended to harass or delay. It's intended to win.
Sure, but I'm replying to the person whose opinion is that laws aren't worded correctly. They're worded fine. There's just bad actors involved.
Without bad actors, you don't need to worry about wording laws more specifically. With bad actors, it doesn't matter if you have a "Abortions cannot be banned" amendment.
I would say the 14th Amendment is pretty unambiguous on abortion, just as the Commerce Clause is 100% unambiguous on the unconstitutionality of these travel laws. The problem is that it's not specific, which is the opening used by this adversarial SCOTUS.
Even if you had 100 pages listing specifics for a Constitutional Amendment, you'd STILL miss obvious ones. The protection from Cruel and Unusual punishment, for example. It should be more unambiguous by including a list of 100 things the authors considered cruel, 100 things the authors considered unusual, and then a stipulation that they meant "if any of those 200 items is true". And even then, those Constitutional authors didn't write "Keelhauling" in the list, so that must be fine!
But summarizing... You can't have a large over-arcing right that stands the test of time and dishonest lawmakers without it being general and requiring some interpretation. If only we could solve for dishonest SCOTUS justices.
Wondering the context of this question, considering the topic of this particular chain. Someone said 400mg is excessive, and then someone else doubled-down that they thought coffee didn't have 400mg of caffeine.
And if it helps you feel better, this actually is coffee. It's the same green coffee extract that Starbucks Refreshers use, more of it (ironically, Starbucks no longer advertises that their refreshers are caffeinated like they used to despite the fact they are).
Interesting. I tried to find an informative link about green coffee extract, and I stumbled into this. People are acting like that lemonade is this stuff. LOL
Gonna suggest it's less simple than that. The mouth only touches a small amount of fluid at once. The temperature plummets really quickly when you sip the hot coffee.
When you stick a finger in the coffee, there's a lot more coffee keeping the liquid contacting your finger hot. That's why you sip hot coffee. If you do a quick dip with your finger, it won't burn.
It's similar to how you can accidentally brush a hot pan and not get a burn.
Ok well even if somehow this particular Panera was devoid of any information about the lemonade, which let’s be honest that is going to be hard enough to prove since the person who was there that day is dead
Sure. I bet there are witnesses who would say one way or the other, but you're mostly right.
That doesn’t negate the fact that if you have some kind of health problem associated with certain foods, in this case caffeine, then you should be checking every ingredient of anything you eat especially from a restaurant
In fairness, that's not realistic. If I order a lobster and it has lobster in it, that's on me. If I order french fries and they secretly infuse it with lobster without advertising it, then it's on me.
The argument many people are making is that Lemonade "doesn't have caffeine in it". And she wasn't restricted and unable to consume caffeine, she was restricted from large quantities (enough that some folks aren't sure she even died from the drink, but that's another discussion). Expecting a random beverage to have coffee-level caffeine with NO notice is definitely unreasonable.
If you are buying a product called “charged lemonade” you shouldn’t just expect its going to be standard fare when you had no hand in making the product
As many have said, "charged" is often used to refer to electrolytes. I mean, look at this.. The word "charged "alone really is not enough, just like the word "house special" added before fries doesn't mean I should expect there might be lobster in them.
Literally anyone with a food allergy deals with this shit on a daily basis, and the only time the restaurant should be to blame is if you specifically asked if said ingredient was in the food and they lie or forget to omit it from the dish.
Except still happens, and if I did my due diligence, the restaurant is usually responsible. That's why they have nutritional-content menus and a well-trained restaurant worker takes you VERY seriously if you mention a food allergy. The issue is that sometimes it shouldn't be on you to mention food allergies. I like lobster allergies as an example. Should I immediately say "I have a lobster allergy" when I walk into an Ice Cream Parlor? Is it my fault if I have an allergic reaction to lobster when I order the Chocolate Chunky Monkey?
I noted that. Yet another commentor linked to a vlog where the signs weren't present because the dispensers were behind the counter and had to be ordered. I think there are absolutely locations NOT showing the marketing.
But please check out the other comments here and see the one showing what the dispensers with signs look like. Those are BIG signs with BIG mention of caffeine.
Most light- to medium-roasts approach 150mg/250mL. The one I'm baselining is Dunkin Donuts, the most popular coffee in the US. A standard Large Iced has almost 400mg of caffeine. You can order it with a shot of espresso, if you like.
We have to remember that the drink she was consuming (multiple times) was a 30oz. There are very few coffees with less than 350-400mg of caffeine in a 24oz size (or smaller)
Absolutely. But sometimes "the bad guy" is innocent. Not every murder victim falls at Charlie Manson's feet. Not person now dead that Charlie Manson once met was murdered by him. The problem is that we are so emotionally wired for revenge. Just look at a prosecutor whenever someone is DNA exonerated, screaming "we're letting a monster free today!"
We need to fix the relationship between people and businesses, as the latter most certainly does exploit us. Socializing and forced ownership-sharing would be a great start. But I would never go so far as "guilty until proven innocent". I think the preponderance standard should be enough. But that's just me.
If I were on a Jury (never happen), "charged" wouldn't be enough for me, but clearly visible signage would.
I don't know how much responsibility I'd put on her, honestly. There's a lot worse things that have gone un-remarked for decades. Like, did you know that "imitation crab meat" often has lobster in it? And is often sold in things with "crab" in the name? I'm highly allergic to lobster and not allergic to crab. I still only get things with "crab" in them at places I know I can trust not to use said imitation meat.
So I look at that, and it's hard for me to fault Panera for it especially because I can see how much they're marketing it as highly caffeinated online and in my local Panera. Not impossible to fault them (I'd have to see/hear the whole story), but difficult.
I missed that line, and it blows the thing wide open. There's no way someone with a heart condition who is avoiding caffeine couldn't tell a LARGE Charged Lemonade was caffeinated after buying it on multiple occasions. Even if you're "resistant" to caffeine, you'd feel something.
Even banning alcoholic energy drinks seems a bit too far
For me in full understanding of how alcohol+energy drinks cause accute alcohol poisoning, I'm ok with forcing people to go through the work of combining them on their own. Nobody is saying you can't sell red bull in a bar, only that you can't buy a 24-pack of the stuff premixed.
My thought on banning has always been this. It's fine to restrict a highly combined product if you allow its components. Someone mixing redbull with jaeger is thinking. Someone drinking a premade alcoholic energy drink is slightly different.
Definitely fair though, I wouldn’t argue strongly against limiting alcohol access in general as we as a society have normalized basically alcoholism and abusing it
I'm comfortable with our current limitations on alcohol, personally..at least when they're followed.
Caffeine is more unhealthy and more addictive than marijuana. So you've used drugs :)
I spent my college years being stupid-straight-edge, but downed enough caffeine to give me jitters every day. I ended up having to quit coffee for a year and have to moderate my intake so it doesn't get excessive again.
A bourbon every once in a while is NOTHING compared to that for me.