In 2015, attorney Kevin Goldberg filed the first wrongful death lawsuit against an energy drink company — Monster Energy — in the death of 19-year-old Alex Morris. Monster Energy reached a settlement with Alex Morris’ lawyer before the case ever went to court. Since then, however, multiple wrongful death lawsuits have been filed against various energy drink companies, inspiring the public to ask the question: What’s the relationship between energy drink consumption and wrongful death?
So before stopping at a gas station to grab a Rockstar on your road trip through St. George, Utah, here are a few things to be aware of.
Growing Evidence Against Energy Drinks
While Monster Energy has continued to deny any wrongdoing in casualties attributed to cardiac arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), growing evidence indicates that energy drinks are a direct contributor to conditions such as heart failure, stroke, heart attack and in rare cases death.
A lawyer or a law enforcement official investigating the unsafe effects of energy drinks will have plenty of evidence to work with. Unfortunately, most energy drink companies are too profitable to consider making any real changes to their ingredients. The best solution is to inform the public about the risks associated with these energy drinks.
Energy Drinks Consumption During Summer
A 12-oz can of Red Bull has 111 mg of caffeine in it — almost two and a half times the amount of caffeine in one can of Diet Coke. Most physicians recommend limiting caffeine intake to 400 mg per day or less. But with summer vacationers pounding energy drinks while they hike through St. George or surf on the West Coast, the risk increases substantially. In warmer places where dehydration is already a risk (St. George reaches temperatures in the triple digits during the summer), people who ingest multiple energy drinks a day have a higher risk of developing cardiac arrhythmia.
There’s no denying that there’s a link between major health problems and energy drinks. Our advice? Avoid a call to your lawyer by decreasing your intake of energy drinks this summer.