Apparently, bad news does come in threes.
Within the past nine months, Monster Beverage Corp. has been slapped with two high-profile lawsuits, each alleging that the company engages in unsafe and irresponsible marketing practices. Now, the energy drink giant is facing yet another potentially damaging hit to its reputation. The Associated Press (AP) today reported that Monster is facing a new lawsuit which claims that a nineteen-year-old’s death was tied to his habitual consumption of the company’s energy drinks.
The family of Alex Morris is suing Monster nearly one year after the teen went into cardiac arrest and died. The lawsuit states that Morris drank two cans of Monster Energy every day for the three years — up to and including the day of his death — and alleges that he would not have died had he not consumed the beverages.
The attorney representing the Morris family is Alexander Wheeler, who also represents the family of Anais Fournier in a similar lawsuit filed against Monster last year. In December 2011, Fournier went into cardiac arrest and died several days later. The Fournier family claims that her death was directly tied to her consumption of two cans of Monster Energy in a 24 hour period.
“Our allegations in the lawsuits are the same and that’s the peoples deaths were caused by these energy drinks and more specifically the defendants failure to warn about the dangers,” Wheeler told the AP.
Last month, San Francisco’s city attorney sued Monster for “violating California law with its marketing of highly-caffeinated energy drinks to children as young as six-years-old,” despite published scientific reports and warnings about the risks of highly-caffeinated drinks in young people. Herrera is pressing Monster to change the way it markets its products to consumers, before it’s “forced to by regulators or courts.”