Retired Nevada Supreme Court justice claims Real Water caused husband’s death

Retired Nevada Supreme Court Justice Abbi Silver has filed a lawsuit against Real Water, alleging that the company’s bottled water caused the ALS that killed her husband.

Kirk Jaster was diagnosed with ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease in February 2022, according to the complaint filed in Clark County District Court on Tuesday. That August, Silver resigned from the court to care for him, the suit said, and he died in September 2024 “as a result of complications from ALS.”

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

Juries have previously delivered multibillion-dollar verdicts against the company, including more than $3 billion in March, another $3 billion in June 2024 and $5 billion in October.

The new suit is the fifth case to tie Real Water to a death, according to Silver’s attorney Will Kemp. The complaint said at least 90 other people were injured from consuming Real Water. Some suffered miscarriages and aborted liver transplants. One person needed emergency brain surgery.

Gov. Joe Lombardo appointed Silver to the Nevada Gaming Commission last year. She deferred comment to Kemp.

Attorneys who have previously represented Real Water did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Jaster was “basically a workout warrior” and “in amazing physical shape,” said Kemp. For years, he would exercise and then go to Sprouts to get Real Water, according to the lawyer.

Sprouts Farmers Markets is a defendant in Silver’s suit and did not respond to a request for comment. KeHE, a food distributor, was also sued and did not respond to requests for comment.

The FDA found the chemical hydrazine in samples from Real Water’s facility, according to the suit.

“Numerous scientific articles conclude that exposure to hydrazine causes certain progressive brain diseases, including ALS,” the complaint said.

Prior ALS clusters included NASA employees who worked in buildings “focused on various hydrazine fuel formulations,” Silver’s attorneys said in the filing.

The allegations in Silver’s suit include a failure to warn, negligence and wrongful death. Silver’s children are also plaintiffs.

A UFC fighter named Gray Maynard, who received “free product in return for promotional activity,” encouraged Jaster to drink Real Water, according to the complaint.

Maynard, who suffered liver failure and sued Real Water too, is not named as a defendant, court records show.

Jaster lived across the street from him and the two would see each other at the gym, Maynard said in a phone interview.

“He’s a person who I looked up to” and was “a great human being,” he said.

Maynard said he would mention that he drank Real Water and recommend it.

“At the time they were pumping it up: ‘It’s alkalined, it’s clean water, we go through a lot of process(es), keep all the impurities out,’” he said. “It sounded great.”

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X. Review-Journal Assistant Managing Editor Carri Geer Thevenot contributed to this report.