Consumers cannot expect boneless chicken wings is actually bone-free, a divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled Thursday, rejecting claims by a restaurant patron who suffered serious medical complications after a bone got stuck in his throat.
Michael Berkheimer was dining with his wife and friends at a wing restaurant in Hamilton, Ohio, and had ordered the usual—boneless wings with garlic Parmesan sauce—when he felt a bite of meat go the wrong way. Three days later, feverish and unable to keep food down, Berkeimer went to the emergency room, where a doctor discovered a long, thin bone that had torn his esophagus and caused an infection.
Berkheimer sued the restaurant Wings on Brookwood, alleging that the restaurant failed to warn him that so-called “boneless wings” — which are, of course, chunks of boneless, skinless breast meat — could contain bones. The suit also named the supplier and the farm that produced the chicken, alleging that they were all negligent.
In a 4-3 ruling Thursday, the Supreme Court said that “boneless wings” refers to a style of cooking, and that Berkheimer should have been wary of bones, since it is well known that chickens have bones. The high court sided with lower courts that had dismissed Berkheimer’s lawsuit.
“A diner reading ‘boneless wings’ on a menu is no more likely to believe that the restaurant is justifying the absence of bones in its dishes than to believe that the dishes are made with chicken wings, just as a person eating ‘chicken fingers’ is less likely to know that he was not served fingers,” wrote Justice Joseph T. Deters for the majority.
The judges who disagreed with Deters’ reasoning called it “complete nonsense” and said a jury should have decided whether the restaurant was negligent in serving Berkheimer a piece of chicken that was advertised as boneless.
“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 there to be bones in the chicken? Of course not,” wrote Justice Michael P. Donnelly in his dissent. “When they read the word ‘boneless,’ they take it to mean ‘without bones,’ just as all reasonable people do.”
