Sarah Katz, 21, had a heart condition and was not aware of the drink’s caffeine content, which exceeded that of cans of Red Bull and Monster energy drinks combined, according to a legal filing

  • abraxas@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    We don’t know if it’s a completely reasonable case, yet. A few statements in the article would clearly cross the line of honest journalism if they weren’t quotations (IMO they still do). Specifically, I think quoting 3 words of their “has lots of caffeine” descriptive sign out-of-context was incredibly dishonest. Might as well comment that a “Do Not Enter” sign reads “Enter”. I mean it TECHNICALLY does, but let’s give the reader the full story and let us decide, and the “Do not” is important. Just like the second half of “Plant-based and Clean with as much caffeine as our Dark Roast coffee” is more contextually important than merely “Plant-based and clean”.

    Is it possible the signs were smudged, missing, facing the wrong direction, or too small? Yeah, sure. But that’s not what the article is representing as the truth. Some of the quotes comparing the lemonade with the lower-caffeine “dark coffee” even seem nonsensical because the article is hiding the full context of the above quote, that the lemonade is advertised as “as much caffeine as our dark coffee”.

    • oxjox@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      Also the part where she had the same thing to drink before.

      Conroy said Katz had bought at least one other Charged Lemonade in the days before her cardiac arrest.

      • abraxas@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        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.