Mom Of Four Found Dead After Using Kratom, Family Gets Over $11M In Damages

A family of a mother of four who died in 2021 after ingesting kratom is entitled to $11.6 million in damages.

What Happened: Grow LLC, which is also known as KD Inc. and The Kratom Distro, and its owner, Sean Michael Harder, are obliged to pay the family of late Krystal Talavera $7 million in non-economic damages and $4.6 million in economic, including $2 million for each of Talavera's three minor children and $1 million for her adult son Devin Filippelli.

The family initially requested $20 million, a sum Judge Donald Middlebrooks deemed unreasonable, drawing parallels to previous tobacco-related wrongful death legal actions in the Sunshine State.

"There is no doubt that this is a tragic case and that Talavera's children loved their mother," the Florida judge said, according to Green Market Report. "Yet when placed alongside the long line of wrongful death actions in Florida, particularly tobacco cases where the survivors tend to have witnessed their loved ones suffer a long and painful death, an award of $20 million is not reasonable."

Why It Matters: Talavera, a registered nurse at a hospice in West Palm Beach, died on Father's Day 2021. She was 39.

She collapsed face down on the kitchen floor while preparing breakfast for the family, according to the court documents. Her fiance found her next to the cup of coffee and an open package of kratom.

According to the Palm Beach County Coroner, Talavera died from acute intoxication caused by mitragynine, a plant native to Southeast Asia, used to make kratom.

"At high concentrations, mitragynine produces opioid-like effects, such as respiratory failure," the Palm Beach County Coroner wrote in an autopsy report.

Being legal on the federal level, kratom — which the FDA does not approve — is easily accessible around the U.S. as a dietary supplement and is often sought as an energy booster, mood enhancer and pain reliever.

Congressional lawmakers recently pushed to secure kratom's legal status. In December, Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) introduced The Federal Clarity for Kratom Consumers Act to protect consumer access to kratom.

The Case That Set The Precedent

The ruling comes on the heels of a twelve-person Washington state jury finding defendant Wendianne Rook and her company, Society Botanicals, LLC, liable on four claims related to yet another kratom death of 39-year-old Patrick Coyne.

The jury verdict in a civil claim for $2.5 million in damages against a kratom manufacturer or distributor set a precedent in the U.S., as it is the first of its kind, according to the Mctlaw firm.

Coyne also died from the toxic effects of mitragynine.

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Photo: Courtesy of Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels