Kratom Lawsuit: Wrongful Death, 7-OH, and State Enforcement

A kratom lawsuit is typically one of three things: a wrongful death suit brought by the family of someone who died after consuming kratom, a consumer class action alleging that a manufacturer hid the product’s addiction and overdose risks, or a state enforcement action against companies selling kratom or its concentrated derivative 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH). Verdicts and judgments have already run into the tens of millions of dollars, and the pool of defendants now stretches from small online vendors to national convenience store chains.

Who Is Being Sued and Why

Defendants in kratom cases include manufacturers of raw kratom powder and tea, companies that produce concentrated 7-OH tablets and liquids, distributors, retailers (including 7-Eleven in one major class action), and in some cases the American Kratom Association itself. Individual owners have also been named, with plaintiffs sometimes seeking to pierce corporate structures to reach them.¹

The injuries alleged fall into two groups. Death cases typically involve a coroner finding of mitragynine intoxication, often in a person who used kratom to manage pain or wean off opioids. Class action plaintiffs more often describe addiction and withdrawal: severe headaches, body aches, insomnia, kidney issues, and cold sweats after trying to stop using the product.²

Wrongful Death Verdicts and Judgments

The largest kratom judgment on record is an $11 million default judgment awarded in July 2023 to the family of Krystal Talavera, a 39-year-old Florida mother of four. The Palm Beach County coroner attributed her June 2021 death to “acute mitragynine intoxication” after she consumed a kratom product labeled “Space Dust.” Her partner found her collapsed on the kitchen floor while her 14-month-old child played nearby.³ The suit, filed in the Southern District of Florida against Grow LLC (doing business as The Kratom Distro) and its owner Sean Michael Harder, ended in default after Harder withdrew his answer citing a lack of financial resources.⁴ A separate proceeding against another vendor stemming from the same death produced a $4.6 million damages order in May 2022.⁵

Days earlier, on July 18, 2023, a Cowlitz County, Washington jury returned a $2.5 million verdict against Society Botanicals LLC and its owner Wendianne Rook in the wrongful death of 39-year-old Patrick Coyne. The county coroner determined Coyne died in 2020 from the “toxic effects of kratom” after consuming the company’s “Kratom Divine” Maeng Da tea. The jury found the defendants liable on four counts: negligent labeling, defective design, breach of the implied warranty of merchantability, and unfair and deceptive practices under Washington’s Consumer Protection Act. It is considered the first kratom wrongful death case to reach a jury verdict in the country.⁶

Other active death cases include a Cobb County, Georgia suit filed by the family of Ethan Pope, a 23-year-old who died December 3, 2021, after consuming O.P.M.S. Black Liquid Kratom. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation listed his cause of death as “mitragynine intoxication.” The complaint names the maker of O.P.M.S., the American Kratom Association, and a long list of distributors and retailers.⁷ In Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia County judge denied summary judgment in August 2021 in the case of Caleb Sturgis, whose family alleges he died of a heart attack caused by a kratom overdose and that SoCal Herbal Remedies LLC provided no safety warnings.⁸

Class Actions Over Marketing

If you bought a kratom product and feel you were misled or became dependent, a class action is the more likely path. The largest settlement so far is an $8.75 million deal in Torres v. Botanic Tonics LLC, which alleged that Botanic Tonics and 7-Eleven falsely marketed “Feel Free” wellness tonics as a healthy alcohol alternative without disclosing their kratom content and opioid-like dependency risks. A court granted preliminary approval on March 5, 2025. U.S. residents who purchased the product between March 2019 and March 2025 were eligible for cash payments, and the defendants agreed to add a warning that the product “contains leaf kratom which can become habit-forming and cause serious adverse health effects.”⁹

In January 2026, the Clarkson Law Firm filed a class action in the Southern District of California against 7Tabz Retail LLC (Case No. 3:26-cv-00440-JLS-DDL) over its 7-OH tablets, sold in doses from 15 mg to 65 mg. The complaint alleges 7Tabz marketed the tablets as safe, natural supplements for “wellness, mental clarity, and safe relief” while concealing their addictive nature. The proposed class covers all U.S. purchasers since January 2022, with claims under California’s Unfair Competition Law, False Advertising Law, Consumers Legal Remedies Act, and the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. The amount in controversy exceeds $5 million.²

A class action was filed October 4, 2024, against Happy Hippo LLC in the Central District of California, alleging the company failed to disclose that its kratom products are addictive and interact with opioid receptors.¹⁰ A similar suit was filed October 7, 2024, against Thang Botanicals (doing business as 7OHMZ) and FTLS Holdings LLC.¹¹

The 7-OH Angle

A growing share of the newest filings target 7-hydroxymitragynine specifically. 7-OH is a kratom alkaloid that acts as a full agonist at opioid receptors and is estimated to be roughly 13 times as potent as morphine. It occurs naturally in kratom leaves only in trace amounts; the products at the center of these lawsuits contain concentrated or synthetic versions that sharply amplify its opioid-like effects.²

The FDA classifies 7-OH as a “novel potent opioid product,” says it is not lawful as a dietary supplement, and advises consumers to avoid it. Reported adverse effects include addiction, seizures, gastrointestinal distress, depression, and withdrawal.¹² A 2024 animal study found pure 7-OH “reliably causes respiratory depression.” Kratom-related poison center calls rose from 330 in 2015 to 1,800 by early August 2025, with roughly a third of recent calls involving 7-OH extracts.¹³

Legal Theories Plaintiffs Use

Most kratom complaints rest on a familiar stack of product liability claims. Failure to warn is the most common: that companies knew or should have known about addiction, respiratory depression, organ damage, and overdose risks and did not disclose them. Deceptive marketing and fraud by omission attack label language like “natural,” “safe,” and “non-addictive.”¹

Strict liability claims come in two flavors: design defect, arguing concentrated 7-OH products are inherently dangerous, and manufacturing defect, where products contain higher alkaloid levels than disclosed. Breach of warranty claims target “safe” or “lab-tested” representations. State consumer protection statutes, particularly California’s and Washington’s, round out most complaints, and punitive damages are frequently sought.

What State Enforcement Means for Consumers

States have opened a second front. On April 21, 2026, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Pure Leaf Kratom LLC and Outcast Distribution LLC in Collin County district court, alleging they shipped synthetic kratom products to Texas consumers with 7-OH levels ranging from 86% to 96% of total alkaloid content, nearly fifty times the 2% limit allowed under the Texas Kratom Consumer Health and Safety Protection Act. The suit invokes that Act and the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and the state has sought a temporary restraining order and injunction.¹⁴

California began full enforcement in February 2026 under the Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act after the state Department of Public Health declared kratom and 7-OH illegal to sell or manufacture for consumption. By March 2026, California had seized over $5 million worth of kratom and 7-OH products, conducted more than 4,500 compliance visits, removed over 3,300 illicit products, and identified 61 violations.¹⁵

A key legal question for the industry was whether federal law preempts these state bans. On May 4, 2026, U.S. District Judge Howard C. Nielson Jr. in Salt Lake City said no. Denying a preliminary injunction sought by Botanic Tonics and the Global Kratom Coalition against Utah’s Kratom Regulation Act, he held that the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act only preempts state requirements about what goes on a label, while Utah’s law addresses what can be sold. “The plaintiffs can comply with both state and federal law simply by declining to sell feel free in Utah,” he wrote.¹⁶ Botanic Tonics filed an interlocutory appeal with the Tenth Circuit on May 5, and the Utah law remains in effect during the appeal.¹⁷

One boundary worth stating plainly: kratom is still legal at the federal level. The DEA announced in August 2016 that it intended to place kratom’s active alkaloids in Schedule I but reversed course after public and congressional pushback, and HHS’s October 2017 recommendation to schedule it has not been acted on.¹⁸ The product liability framework, not a federal controlled substances framework, is what drives these lawsuits.

Causation Hurdles in Death Cases

Causation is the hardest part of a kratom wrongful death case. A CDC analysis of more than 27,000 overdose deaths between July 2016 and December 2017 identified 152 that tested positive for kratom. Medical examiners listed kratom as a cause of death in 91 of those cases, but in only seven was kratom the sole substance detected. Fentanyl or its analogs were listed as a cause of death in 65% of kratom-positive cases, and heroin, benzodiazepines, prescription opioids, and cocaine were also frequently present. Roughly 80% of the decedents had a documented history of substance misuse.¹⁹

That co-ingestion pattern gives defendants a built-in defense. The cases that have produced large recoveries have tended to involve toxicology showing mitragynine alone or as the dominant substance, as in Talavera and Pope. Postmortem testing for kratom is not standardized across jurisdictions, and findings are often qualitative rather than quantitative, which means a report may confirm mitragynine without measuring how much. The American Kratom Association has argued that death investigations rely on biased toxicology conclusions that fail to distinguish between compounds or detect adulterated products.²⁰

Where the Litigation Is Headed

Plaintiff firms are actively taking cases. The Wetherington Law Firm has reported more than a dozen active matters, mctlaw is filing in Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida, Oregon, and Washington, and Morgan & Morgan is openly soliciting kratom clients.²¹ The pace of new inquiries has eased somewhat from the surge that followed the 2023 verdicts, but established verdicts showing that kratom products can be held liable under standard product liability theories, combined with the FDA’s hardening stance on 7-OH and expanding state regulation, point to a legal area that will keep developing for years.²⁰

1
Mayer Brown. The Emerging Kratom Litigation Landscape and Implications for Similarly Situated Manufacturers
2
ClassAction.org. Class Action Lawsuit Claims 7Tabz Kratom Is Highly Addictive and Dangerous
3
CBS 12. Judge Awards $11 Million in Wrongful Death Lawsuit
4
NBC News. $11 Million Awarded to Family of Woman Who Died Taking Kratom
5
NPR. Kratom Herbal Supplement Lawsuits Deaths FDA
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mctlaw. A $2.5 Million Jury Verdict in the First Kratom Wrongful Death Trial in the U.S.
7
Miami Herald. Kratom Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed in Georgia
8
SMBB Law. PA Judge Clears Kratom Death Case for Trial
9
ClassAction.org. $8.75 Million Botanic Tonics Settlement Reached in Feel Free Kratom Lawsuit
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ClassAction.org. L.S. v. Happy Hippo LLC Complaint
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Rosenfeld Injury Law. OPMS Kratom Lawsuit
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U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Products Containing 7-OH Can Cause Serious Harm
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Washington Poison Center. Kratom
14
Texas Attorney General. Attorney General Paxton Sues Kratom Retailers Selling Products Containing Nearly Fifty Times Legal Limit
15
Office of the Governor of California. Governor Newsom Announces 95% Compliance With Prohibition of Illegal Kratom Products
16
Courthouse News Service. Federal Judge Rejects Bid To Halt Enforcement of Utah’s Kratom Regulation Act
17
Utah Attorney General. Utah Defeats Challenge to Kratom Law
18
PBS NewsHour. HHS Recommended That the DEA Make Kratom a Schedule I Drug
19
CDC. Notes From the Field: Unintentional Drug Overdose Deaths With Kratom Detected
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SupplySide. Kratom Lawsuits To Increase in 2025 Amid Growing Recognition of Health Impacts
21
Morgan & Morgan. Kratom Lawsuits Rise: What You Need To Know