Current:Home > MyNevada jury awards $130M to 5 people who had liver damage after drinking bottled water-InfoLens
Nevada jury awards $130M to 5 people who had liver damage after drinking bottled water
View Date:2024-12-23 10:18:25
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada jury has awarded about $130 million in damages in a lawsuit filed by five people who suffered liver damage after drinking bottled water marketed by a Las Vegas-based company before the product was recalled from store shelves in 2021.
The Clark County District Court jury awarded more than $30 million in compensatory damages to the plaintiffs including Myles Hunwardsen, a Henderson man who underwent a liver transplant at age 29. The jury levied another $100 million in punitive damages.
The verdict reached Tuesday was the second large-sum award in a negligence and product liability case involving AffinityLifestyles.com Inc. and its Real Water brand, which was sold in distinctive boxy blue bottles as premium treated “alkalized” drinking water with healthy detoxifying properties.
In October, a state court jury awarded more than $228 million in damages to several plaintiffs including relatives of a 69-year-old woman who died and a 7-month-old boy who was hospitalized. Both were diagnosed with severe liver failure.
“We want to send a message to food and beverage manufacturers that they should be committed to quality assurance,” Will Kemp, a lawyer who represented plaintiffs in both trials, said Thursday.
Kemp said several more negligence and product liability cases are pending against the company, including one scheduled to begin in May stemming from liver damage diagnoses of six children who ranged in age from 7 months to 11 years old at the time.
Affinitylifestyles.com was headed by Brent Jones, who served as a Republican state Assembly member from 2016 to 2018. Kemp said Jones has declared bankruptcy and moved out of the state. Telephone calls to Jones on Thursday rang busy and an email request for comment was not answered.
Other defendants in the case reached confidential settlements before trial, including Whole Foods Market and Costco Wholesale, which sold the water, and testing meter companies Hanna Instruments and Milwaukee Instruments. Terrible Herbst, a convenience store chain, reached a settlement during the trial.
At trial, jurors were told that tests found Real Water contained hydrazine, a chemical used in rocket fuel that may have been introduced during treatment before bottling.
Real Water attorney Joel Odou argued that the company was unintentionally negligent, not reckless, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. He said the company didn’t know hydrazine was in the water and didn’t know to test for it.
The water the company used was from the Las Vegas-area public supply, which mainly comes from the Lake Mead reservoir behind Hoover Dam on the Colorado River.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority, the region’s main public supplier, monitors and tests for 166 different possible contaminants, spokesman Bronson Mack said Thursday. Hydrazine is not among them.
Mack noted that the water authority was not a defendant in the lawsuits and said the area’s municipal water supply meets or surpasses all federal Safe Drinking Water Act standards.
Real Water was sold for at least eight years, primarily in Central and Southern California, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Utah. It was also promoted on social media and sold online.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Las Vegas-based Clark County Health District issued public warnings beginning in March 2021 not to drink or use the product, and ordered it pulled from store shelves.
veryGood! (18)
Related
- Mariah Carey's Amazon Holiday Merch Is All I Want for Christmas—and It's Selling Out Fast!
- 'Concerned Citizen' At Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes' Trial Turns Out To Be Family
- Here's How Chris Rock Celebrated the 2023 Oscars Far Away From Hollywood
- Angela Bassett, Cara Delevingne and More Best Dressed Stars at the Oscars 2023
- Burt Bacharach, composer of classic songs, will have papers donated to Library of Congress
- Lady Gaga Channels A Star Is Born's Ally With Stripped-Down Oscars Performance
- Fan Bingbing Makes Rare Appearance at 2023 Oscars 5 Years After Mysterious Disappearance
- How Halle Berry and Jessica Chastain Replaced Will Smith for This Oscars 2023 Moment After 10-Year Ban
- Too Hot to Handle’s Francesca Farago Gives Birth, Welcomes Twins With Jesse Sullivan
- We're Soaring, Flying Over Vanessa Hudgens and Ex Austin Butler's Oscars After-Party Run-In
Ranking
- FanDuel Sports Network regional channels will be available as add-on subscription on Prime Video
- Facebook asks court to toss FTC lawsuit over its buys of Instagram and WhatsApp
- The Push For Internet Voting Continues, Mostly Thanks To One Guy
- Planning for a space mission to last more than 50 years
- Ford agrees to pay up to $165 million penalty to US government for moving too slowly on recalls
- Salma Hayek and Daughter Valentina Are the Perfect Match in Coordinating Oscars 2023 Red Carpet Looks
- Netflix employees are staging a walkout as a fired organizer speaks out
- Zelenskyy decries graphic video purportedly showing beheading of Ukrainian prisoner of war: Everyone must react
Recommendation
-
Drone footage captures scope of damage, destruction from deadly Louisville explosion
-
States are investigating how Instagram recruits and affects children
-
Facebook whistleblower isn't protected from possible company retaliation, experts say
-
Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick Do Date Night in Matching Suits at 2023 Vanity Fair Oscars Party
-
Knicks Player Ogugua Anunoby Nearly Crashes Into Anne Hathaway and Her Son During NBA Game
-
For Facebook, A Week Of Upheaval Unlike Any Other
-
Xbox mini fridges started as a meme. Now they're real, and all sold out
-
An original Apple-1 computer sells for $400,000