A lawsuit says Alani energy drinks caused the death of 17-year-old Larissa Rodriguez, a teenager who had been accepted into nearly 20 colleges and universities before she died last October. A coroner’s report said she died from an enlarged heart caused by stress and a large amount of caffeine from the drinks.
The filing says the beverages contain twice the maximum daily amount of caffeine recommended for teenagers and also include undisclosed stimulants that can cause cardiac issues and death. The case puts the focus on allegations tied to the drinks and the coroner’s findings, and it leaves Glazer’s Beer and Beverage without a public response so far.
Rodriguez’s death is now at the center of a legal claim that turns a personal loss into a question about what was in the can and what the company knew about it. The lawsuit does not just blame caffeine in the abstract; it argues that Alani drinks carried enough stimulant content to push a vulnerable teen past a fatal limit.
That is the friction point in the case. The coroner’s report points to stress and a large amount of caffeine as the cause of the enlarged heart, while the lawsuit adds that the drinks also contained undisclosed stimulants. Together, those allegations give the family a basis to argue that the product itself played a direct role in her death.
For now, the unanswered question is not whether Rodriguez mattered — her college acceptances make that plain — but whether the claims in the filing can be proven and whether anyone connected to the product will answer for what was inside it.
