Logan Paul’s Prime Hydration Shakes Off Caffeine Marketing Suit

Consumers alleging Prime Hydration LLC, a beverage company founded by YouTubers Logan Paul and KSI, improperly marketed highly caffeinated drinks to children failed to plead their claims with enough specificity to proceed, a federal judge said.

Many of the claims were based on allegations that Prime Hydration made false and misleading statement and thus sound in fraud, the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky said Wednesday. Such claims are subject to heightened pleading standards that the consumers “failed to meet,” Judge Greg N. Stivers said.

Stivers also rejected the consumers’ public nuisance claim because such claims “in Kentucky appear to have been limited solely to real property-based claims,” and “nothing suggests that Kentucky courts have recognized public nuisance claims in this context.”

The consumers alleged most of the Prime Hydration’s market consists of customers under the age of 24, many of whom are minors who are too young to consume energy drinks with that much caffeine without health risks.

The company was founded in 2022 and initially offered sports drinks claiming to be sugar and caffeine free and full of electrolytes and vitamins. The company launched an energy line the following year. The energy drinks have 200 mg of caffeine, and Prime Hydration lists them for ages 18 and up.

Prime Hydration’s energy drinks have come under scrutiny due to their high caffeine content and popularity among teenagers. Last summer, Senator Chuck Schumer asked the US Food and Drug Administration to investigate the beverage company and its energy drink line after the energy drinks became status symbols among teenagers on social media.

The company is facing similar litigation over the energy drinks’ caffeine content in New York as well as other lawsuits alleging PFAS contamination, trademark infringement, and a $68 million contract dispute with a bottler.

The Kentucky consumers are represented by Bahe Cook Cantley & Nefzger PLC, Sterlington PLLC, and Evangelista Worley LLC.

Prime Hydration is represented by Frost Brown Todd LLP and Greenberg Traurig LLP.

The case is Kennedy v. Prime Hydration LLC, W.D. Ky., No. 3:23-cv-00476, 8/14/24.