Jury awards over $3B against Las Vegas bottled water company Real Water

A jury on Friday reached a more than $3 billion verdict in a civil trial against Real Water, the bottled water company that made a product linked to a Southern Nevada liver failure outbreak and at least one death.

This follows previous multibillion-dollar verdicts against the company, $5 billion in October and $3 billion in June.

Affinitylifestyles.com, the Las Vegas company behind Real Water, billed its product as “the healthiest drinking water available” when it contained a toxic chemical used in rocket fuel.

Real Water was determined to be at fault for the injuries of the plaintiffs in the current trial, attorneys told jurors. That meant the central question for the jury was how much money the 13 plaintiffs would receive, not whether the water caused the plaintiffs’ injuries.

The company had a “complete indifference to the health of the customers and the public,” argued attorney Theodore Parker, who represented plaintiff Andria Bordenave.

After hearing nearly three weeks of testimony and argument, jurors began deliberating Thursday afternoon. They resumed deliberations Friday morning and reached a verdict after about two hours, awarding compensatory and future damages of more than $70 million.

Jurors then heard arguments from attorneys about punitive damages and came back with their massive punitive damages verdict after only about 10 more minutes deliberating.

The punitive damages amount awarded matched what attorney Robert Eglet, who represented plaintiff Lisa King, 52, requested.

“What do you think will happen if you give them a pass, if you let them off with a bargain basement verdict, a slap on the wrist?” Eglet asked the jury. “What will that tell our community? Human well-being and safety is on sale in Las Vegas? The bottled water industry will just continue business as usual.”

He added: “You could be the ones who prevent something like this from ever happening in the future.”

Defense attorney Bradley Johnson declined to comment after the trial but argued to the jury that none of the plaintiffs died or required a liver transplant.

After court, King said the verdict was validating. She suffered severe liver damage, myasthenia gravis and autoimmune hepatitis, Eglet said in his closing argument, and is likely to eventually lose her mobility.

Her compensatory verdict totals $54 million, including damages Real Water agreed upon, Eglet said.

According to court records, Real Water’s product caused dozens of cases of liver failure and hospitalizations. People suffered miscarriages and aborted liver transplants, attorneys have said. One person needed emergency brain surgery. Pets died.

The Food and Drug Administration found that at least 21 hospitalizations and one death were likely linked to the water.

The company filed for bankruptcy and is no longer operating.

Collecting on the verdict will be a challenge for the plaintiffs.

According to attorney Will Kemp, who represented 11 of the plaintiffs in the trial, Real Water’s insurers will be responsible for the award.

“They’re not going to want to pay it,” he said. “We’re going to have to sue them.”

He said the punitive award would be cut down to $1.4 billion. And because the company’s insurance did not settle before trial, insurers will also be on the hook for attorneys fees that will be shared with the plaintiffs, making the actual compensatory total $140 million, he said.

The settlement offer for all 13 plaintiffs was previously about $7 million, according to Kemp.

Eglet said the punitive damages will be divided proportionally among the plaintiffs.

Juror Susan Garcia said after the trial that the jury tried to be “fair and equitable.”

The punitive damages, she said, allowed jurors “to say you were wrong, you did wrong and don’t do it again.”

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.