Real Water founder makes statement as company faces federal class-action suit

Three California women are leading a federal class-action lawsuit against the Las Vegas-based maker of Real Water in the wake of an investigation into liver illness linked to the product.

The complaint was filed Monday in Las Vegas and would allow anyone across the country who had suffered illness after drinking the water, along with a subclass of people who purchased and consumed the water in California, to join the case.

Meanwhile, Brent Jones, the company’s president and a former Nevada legislator, has released a video on Real Water’s website, saying he is cooperating with the Food and Drug Administration investigation.

“First, we’d like to express our deepest sympathy and concern over the events that led to the inquiry,” Jones said in the video. He stated that he started the company 13 years ago “with the intention to provide a healthy product that benefits and elevates people’s lifestyles. We are deeply saddened to learn that anything otherwise could be the result.”

The FDA has warned consumers, restaurants and retailers not to drink, cook with, sell or serve the product, which was delivered to homes and sold at stores across the southwest.

Real Water was marketed as “alkalized water infused with negative ions” and touted on its label as “the healthiest drinking water available.”

Two of the plaintiffs in the class-action suit, filed by the Reno law firm Wise & Donahue, said they suffered nausea after drinking the water, and one of them noticed blood in her urine.

“Nowhere in Defendant’s advertisements, marketing or labeling of the Products does it disclose that the Product causes liver failure, hospitalization, fever, vomiting, nausea, loss of appetite, and/or fatigue,” attorney David Hilton Wise wrote in the complaint. “Plaintiffs would not have purchased the product, or would have paid much less for it, if they knew that they were undertaking a risk to their health by consuming it.”

Three other lawsuits were filed against the company in Clark County District Court, where lawyers for several people who were hospitalized are seeking monetary compensation.

Jones has called for retailers to pull the product from shelves.

In the video, Jones called the recall “deeply concerning.”

“I assure you that the lessons learned from this will drive further improvement in the brand,” he said.

The FDA originally said the agency was alerted about five cases of acute non-viral hepatitis, which causes liver failure, in infants and children from November.

Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.