Boneless Wings Can Have Bones, Court Rules

When ordering wings at a restaurant, Americans will opt for either the boneless or bone-in option depending on their preferences. When you bite into a boneless wing, you probably aren't expecting to bite a bone. But in Ohio, it turns out wings advertised as boneless can actually have bones in them. 

In a ruling handed down July 25, the Ohio Supreme Court decided that consumers can't expect boneless chicken wings to not have any bones in them. It all started after Michael Berkheimer and his wife were eating at the Wings on Brookwood restaurant in the city of Hamilton and a bite of boneless wing felt wrong as it went down Berkheimer's throat. He soon became quite ill and couldn't keep food down for three days, finally rushing to the emergency room for treatment. A doctor ended up finding a long, thin bone that had torn his esophagus and caused an infection. 

Berkheimer sued the restaurant for not warning him that the boneless wings could contain bones, as well as the supplier and the farm where the chicken came from for their negligence. In a 5–4 ruling, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in favor of the defendants.  

"A diner reading 'boneless wings' on a menu would no more believe that the restaurant was warranting the absence of bones in the items than believe that the items were made from chicken wings, just as a person eating 'chicken fingers' would know that he had not been served fingers," Justice Joseph T. Deters wrote in the majority opinion, per The Associated Press.

The dissenting justices, meanwhile, recognized the majority's opinion as "utter jabberwocky." This case, they said, should have been left up to a jury to decide. 

"The question must be asked: Does anyone really believe that the parents in this country who feed their young children boneless wings or chicken tenders or chicken nuggets or chicken fingers expect bones to be in the chicken? Of course they don’t,” Justice Michael P. Donnelly dissented. "When they read the word ‘boneless,’ they think that it means 'without bones,' as do all sensible people."

If you're a boneless wing lover, you might want to bite into your next piece with extra caution.