‘RESOLVED’

Panera Bread Settles First Wrongful Death Lawsuit Over Its Charged Lemonade

The settlement was secured just days before the case was scheduled to go to trial.

Panera Bread has reached the first settlement in a line of wrongful death lawsuits involving the company’s hypercaffeinated charged lemonade, NBC News reported on Monday. The case was brought by the family of Sarah Katz, 21, a former University of Penn student who went into cardiac arrest hours after drinking the lemonade in September 2022. It had been scheduled to go to trial later this month. Her family filed the suit against the chain last October. Three other suits by other victims’ families were filed in subsequent months. A lawyer representing the Katzes and the other three families confirmed to NBC that “the matter has resolved” but said she was not permitted to share further details. Panera did not immediately respond to a request by the network for comment. After Katz’s family filed their lawsuit, the company said it was “very saddened” to learn of her death and promised to “thoroughly investigate this matter.” It stopped selling charged lemonade in May.