Larissa Rodriguez was two months away from turning 18. She was a cheerleader, a tennis player, student council president, an honors student accepted to nearly 20 colleges, and a beauty queen who’d won the inaugural Junior Miss Weslaco title. She had plans to study law at the University of Texas at Austin. Then, on October 20, 2025, she suffered a fatal cardiac event. She was only 17 years old.
Now her parents, Jennifer and Roberto Rodriguez, are fighting back. They filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Hidalgo County District Court on April 8, 2026, claiming that the Alani Nu energy drink their daughter drank daily played a direct role in her death. The lawsuit is seeking at least $1 million in damages. And the details of the case are raising hard questions about how energy drinks get marketed, who they’re really aimed at, and what happens when something goes wrong.
What the Medical Examiner Found
According to the family’s attorney, Benny Agosto Jr., the Hidalgo County Medical Examiner determined that Larissa Rodriguez’s cause of death was cardiomyopathy — an enlarged heart — caused by excessive caffeine consumption. Cardiomyopathy is when the heart struggles to pump blood effectively, and it can be fatal.
At the press conference the day after the lawsuit was filed, Agosto made it clear: Rodriguez had no pre-existing conditions. She had no history of drug or alcohol use. The medical examiner ran a hundred different tests. Everything came back negative. “The only thing she had in her system was caffeine,” Agosto said.
This wasn’t a case of someone chugging five cans in one sitting. According to her family, Rodriguez had been drinking at least one can of Alani Nu per day over the past year, sometimes more. “It’s not that she drank five one day and just died, it wasn’t like that,” Agosto said. It was a daily routine — wake up, go to school, grab an Alani Nu, head to cheer practice or a tennis match.
Who Is Actually Being Sued
Here’s where things get interesting. The lawsuit doesn’t name Alani Nu directly — at least not yet. The defendants are Glazer’s Beer and Beverage and Glazer’s Beer and Beverage of Texas, the distributors who supply the drink to retailers across Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.
According to the lawsuit, Rodriguez bought her Alani Nu cans from an H-E-B store, and those cans were distributed and supplied by Glazer’s. Agosto explained the reasoning: “They’re the ones that receive it, distribute it and put it all over the place, and they also fail to give any warnings.”
Celsius Holdings, which purchased Alani Nu in April 2025 for $1.8 billion, is not currently named as a defendant. But Agosto signaled that more defendants could be added as discovery progresses. Glazer’s Beer and Beverage has not publicly responded to the lawsuit.
The Labeling Problem
A single 12-ounce can of Alani Nu contains 200 mg of caffeine. For an adult, the FDA’s rough guideline is a maximum of 400 mg per day. But Rodriguez wasn’t an adult. She was 17. And the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that teenagers between 12 and 17 consume less than 100 mg of caffeine daily. One can of Alani Nu is double that limit.
The lawsuit zeroes in on what’s printed — and what’s not printed — on the can. It argues that the only cautionary language, “Not recommended for children under 18, those sensitive to caffeine, pregnant or nursing women,” is in small text that’s easy to miss. There’s no maximum daily consumption limit on the label. No warning that drinking multiple cans could be dangerous. And critically, according to the lawsuit, the label “does not alert consumers that consumption can cause cardiomyopathy, cardiac arrhythmia, cardiac arrest, or death.”
The can also contains taurine, L-theanine, and guarana seed extract — other stimulant ingredients — and the lawsuit claims the amounts are undisclosed. The family’s legal team argues these compounds add to the cardiac risks beyond the caffeine alone.
How Alani Nu Markets Itself
This is the part of the case that might get the most attention. Alani Nu isn’t marketed the way Monster or Red Bull are. There are no extreme sports athletes or skull logos. Instead, the cans come in bright tropical colors — aqua, tangerine, neon pink — with dessert-inspired flavors like Pink Slush and Sherbet Swirl. The brand has over 1.4 million followers on Instagram, another million on TikTok, and uses language like “besties” and “babes” in its social media posts.
The brand was founded in 2018 by fitness influencer Katy Hearn and co-founder Haydn Schneider. Celebrity endorsements have come from Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Emily Ratajkowski, country singer Meagan Moroney, and fitness vlogger Whitney Simmons. According to one industry analysis, roughly 70% of Alani Nu’s consumer base is female. The brand also runs a collegiate ambassadors program and partners with college athletes through NIL deals.
The lawsuit alleges that this isn’t accidental — that Alani Nu deliberately targets young women and minors by positioning itself as a “wellness and lifestyle beverage” rather than what it actually is: an energy drink loaded with caffeine. Agosto called that marketing “particularly deceptive” because it makes the product seem like part of a healthy, active lifestyle.
One detail that keeps coming up: a homecoming invitation Rodriguez received that featured an image of the drink with the message, “Hope you have the energy to go to Hoco with me.” Rodriguez herself was photographed in her cheerleading uniform holding a can. The drink wasn’t something she hid. It was woven into her social life.
Canada Already Flagged This Drink
The Rodriguez family’s lawsuit points to something that happened north of the border. In August 2023, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued a safety warning for Alani Nu energy drinks, citing non-compliant caffeine content and labeling. Canadians were advised not to drink, sell, or distribute the product. Canadian regulations require prominent warnings that energy drinks are not recommended for anyone under 14, and they cap caffeine content in energy drinks.
Here’s a striking detail: the Alani Nu can sold in the U.S. contains 200 mg of caffeine. The Canadian version? Only 140 mg. Same brand, same product line, different rules — and apparently different formulas to match. The lawsuit argues that this difference shows the company knows the caffeine levels are a concern but hasn’t adjusted the product for the American market.
Celsius Says It Followed the Rules
Celsius Holdings, which now owns Alani Nu after completing the $1.8 billion acquisition in April 2025, released a statement saying its products “comply with applicable federal labeling requirements” and that the company’s policy is “not to market or sample to anyone under 18, consistent with those label warnings.”
That’s a carefully worded response. The can does say it’s not recommended for children under 18. But “not recommended” is doing a lot of heavy lifting when you’re selling a brightly colored, candy-flavored drink backed by TikTok influencers and collegiate cheer ambassadors. There’s a gap between what the label says and what the marketing communicates, and that gap is exactly what the Rodriguez family is suing over.
A Massive Brand With a Growing Problem
Alani Nu isn’t some fringe product. It pulled in $600 million in revenue in 2024. You can find it at Walmart, Target, Costco, Kroger, GNC, The Vitamin Shoppe, and on Amazon. The combined Celsius and Alani Nu platform was expected to generate roughly $2 billion in annual sales. PepsiCo invested $585 million in Celsius Holdings in August 2025 and serves as the exclusive distribution partner for Celsius, Alani Nu, and Rockstar Energy across North America.
This lawsuit arrives as the wider energy drink industry faces increasing scrutiny over marketing practices. Research from the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy noted that many energy drinks “are marketed in a way that makes them appear not to be energy drinks — not to be highly caffeinated products.” And data from America’s Poison Centers showed 2,694 calls about energy drink exposure in children and teens in 2023 alone.
What Happens Next
The case is currently in Hidalgo County District Court. A judge will decide on the admissibility of the lawsuit and whether the defendants will face trial. The Rodriguez family’s legal team at Abraham Watkins has said they plan to use discovery to obtain sales, marketing, and distribution records. More defendants may be added as the case moves forward.
For now, what’s left is a family in Weslaco, Texas, trying to make sense of losing a daughter who did everything right — good grades, good friends, big plans for college — and a $1.8 billion brand that says it followed all the rules. The courtroom will sort out the legal questions. But the other question, the one about whether an energy drink that looks like a lifestyle accessory and tastes like candy should be this easy for a teenager to make part of her daily routine — that one’s bigger than any lawsuit.
Larissa Rodriguez’s obituary said her spirit “shone brightly throughout her life, touching all those fortunate enough to know her.” She was a kid with a future. And her parents want to make sure what happened to her doesn’t happen to someone else’s kid next.