Barnes & Thornburg Secures Appellate Win for Mood Rite in Wrongful Death Suit

On May 15, 2026, the Georgia Court of Appeals issued a unanimous opinion upholding a DeKalb County judge’s ruling that Mood Rite was not liable as a seller or manufacturer of a natural herb known as kratom that plaintiffs alleged caused the death of 27-year-old Brendan Taylor.

"Even viewed in the light most favorable to the Taylors, the evidence in the record does not support the position that Mood Rite is a manufacturer," stated the opinion written by Judge Jeffrey Davis. "Rather, Mood Rite is merely a product seller and not subject to the strict liability standard applied to manufacturers."

In May 2022, Brendan’s parents filed a complaint seeking relief for the death of their son, who was a consumer of kratom and died in April 2021. They filed failure-to-warn claims based on theories of strict liability and negligence. 

At the time, Mood Rite was represented by another law firm. Unhappy with its representation, Mood Rite decided to change counsel and retained BT based on a referral from a client of Atlanta partner Raanon Gal in February 2025. Discovery in the case had already closed, and the BT Mood Rite litigation team had just 45 days to get up to speed and file all dispositive and expert motions. The team was led by Atlanta partner Ariyike Diggs, and included partner Alejandra Reichard (Indianapolis) and associates Addison Smith (Atlanta) and Erin Gilmore (Los Angeles). Atlanta paralegals Lisa Wilkerson and Sonya McNeil also assisted.  

In July 2025, the trial court dismissed the claims, finding that Mood Rite was a mere product seller and not strictly liable as a manufacturer, and that there was no evidence that Mood Rite had any knowledge of the dangers plaintiffs claimed were posed by the kratom Mood Rite sold. The Taylors appealed and, during oral arguments in February 2026, said that Mood Rite had a reasonable duty to make explicit the dangers of the product it was selling, based in part on federal health regulators’ advisement about the hazards of using kratom. 

Barnes & Thornburg partner Christopher Daniels (Atlanta) joined the Mood Rite litigation team to argue the appeal. Daniels countered that neither Georgia law nor federal law banned kratom as a product, but that Mood Rite explicitly included warnings on its labels that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had not approved it for human consumption.

Daniels added that Mood Rite was not aware that kratom products were potentially lethal and, as a seller, had no duty to perform its own probe into the safety of wares it receives and repackages from a manufacturer without altering it.

"There's a serious risk, if we extend strict liability to product sellers, that many companies that simply package and label products could then be strictly liable for a product," he said.

The Georgia appeals court agreed, saying in its opinion: "We find the evidence in the record does not present a genuine issue of material fact as to whether 'by the application of reasonable, developed human skill and foresight,' Mood Rite should have known there was a danger that consuming kratom could result in death such that it needed to issue a warning to that effect on the label of its kratom products."

The decision made headlines in ALM’s The Daily Report and Law360.