A Kansas City woman opens a lawsuit against Monster Energy Drink over her husband’s death. Heather Felts says her husband, Shane, died two months ago after drinking a Monster Energy Drinks a day. She says the drink manufacturer touts the beverage as a weight loss product when in reality there are very few to no recorded health benefits.
She and her attorney, Mark Whitfield claim that the beverage was responsible for her husband’s death. They are seeking financial compensation for medical bills, funeral expenses and lost income.
Lawsuit Against Monster Energy Drink
According to the lawsuit, the Energy Drink company knowingly markets an energy beverage that contains controlled substances and falsely claims a health benefit. In addition to failing to provide any scientific proof of their product benefits, the lawsuit says the Energy Drink company encourages their advertisers to promote the product as if it were a prescription drug.
In addition to failing to obtain any FDA approval for their product, the Energy Drink company has a history of creating deceptive advertisements. Most importantly, the company is guilty of using someone else’s life in order to sell their product. The two parties signed a non-disclosure agreement when the lawsuit was filed in January.
The Energy Drink company promotes their drinks as “the one” and offers free trials.
Unfortunately for the defendant, they cannot prove that their beverages are safe or healthy. Instead of launching an educational and awareness campaign promoting safety and responsibility, the defendant encourages consumers to purchase energy drinks based upon the promotion of their product. This violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), the Consumer Credit Act, and the federal False Advertising Act.
The lawsuit also claims that the Monster Energy Drink and Hansen Beverage Company engage in a scheme to illegally encourage consumers to purchase energy drinks even if they do not need them, such as to drive a truck or operate machinery.
The company encourages consumers to visit websites which allegedly provide links to independent review websites where consumers can find glowing, positive reviews of the Monster Energy Drink and/or Hansen beverages. When the plaintiff’s attorney obtained these links, he discovered that they were from one website which was controlled by the defendants.
He further found that the distribution list on the website did not include legitimate consumer review sites. As a result of this discovery, the company will be forced to pay a penalty of $100 per offending link and must commit to never again distribute the links.
The legal battle between the Monster Energy Drink company and the plaintiff’s attorney is just the latest example of the company using copyrighted materials in a way to advance its business.
Recently the company was fined $5 million for illegally posting a motivational commercial on YouTube. This illegal act allowed the energy drink company to use copyrighted music without obtaining permission from the copyright holder. A similar case occurred with the bottled water company, Evian.
The legal battle with the Monster Energy Drink company may be yet another high-profile example of big business using copyrighted works in a way to boost their bottom line.
If successful, this legal issue could cost major corporations in what appears to be a very expensive war of the bulge. At the time of this writing, the Monster Energy Drink company has not responded to our request for comment. If you would like to learn more about this story, please visit the site listed below for additional updates.
