Images of "beautiful, sexy and scantily clad young women". Sponsorships of extreme sports. Labeling referencing "milfs". Advertising promising a "buzz." These are promotions Monster Beverage Corp. uses effectively, a class-action lawsuit filed Wednesday declares, encouraging teenagers and 20-somethings to purchase its energy drinks.
What Monster fails to divulge is that its advertising and labeling is false and misleading because the energy drink behemoth doesn't reveal the adverse health conditions the beverages can cause, including an increased heart rate, according to the complaint.
"Notwithstanding the high caffeine levels in Monster Energy Drinks and scientific evidence of the serious health risks that they pose, especially for the teenagers and youth that the Company specifically targets, Monster Energy Drinks fail miserably in providing any warnings on its product as to the effects of frequent or excessive caffeine consumption to the teenagers and youth it targets," Beverly Hills, Calif., plaintiff's attorney Azra Z. Mehdi writes in the complaint.
The complaint is just the latest lawsuit filed against Monster following revelations that its drinks are linked to five deaths and one non-fatal heart attack. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating the deaths, although the agency has cautioned it treats the reports as allegations and has established no causal connection between the consumption of the drinks and the fatalities.
FDA's cautionary language hasn't stopped Monster from being sued. Justin Prochnow, a shareholder with the international law firm of Greenberg Traurig, LLP, said he is aware of at least three lawsuits, possibly a fourth, filed against Monster, including a wrongful death action brought by the parents of a 14-year-old girl who died. A class action lawsuit was filed last month against Monster in Orange County Superior Court.
Judy Sfetcu, a spokeswoman for Monster, on Thursday declined to comment on the class action lawsuit or disclose the number of complaints pending against the company. Monster previously said the company is unaware of its products causing any death.
The most recent complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of the plaintiff Alec Fisher and other similarly situated individuals. Fisher has been drinking Monster for the last five years and first downed the beverage when he was a junior in high school after the company handed out free cans outside his school, according to the complaint.
"Mr. Fischer believed that Monster Energy Drinks were safe for consumption by persons of all ages since the guys in the Monster Energy Drink truck were not asking kids how old they were prior to handing out the Monster Energy Drinks," the lawsuit asserts. "Further, Mr. Fisher saw nothing on the labeling of the Monster Energy Drink can that would lead him to believe that drinking the Monster Energy Drink could be bad for his health. Had Mr. Fisher known these facts, he would not have accepted Defendants' freebie cans or subsequently continued to purchase and consume Monster Energy Drinks for years after."
The lawsuit further contends Monster has marketed its energy drinks like a beverage or sports drink but has managed to circumvent "meaningful regulation" of its product by classifying its drinks as a "dietary supplement" rather than a usual "food" or "beverage". Red Bull and other competitors market their products as beverages, according to the 55-page complaint.
"If you are going to sell a product as a supplement, don’t call it an energy drink!" wrote Prochnow, the attorney, in an email Thursday commenting on the lawsuit. "You have to be consistent or risk being treated differently than you may want."
