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Diners who order boneless chicken wings cannot expect the meat to be actually free of bones, an Ohio Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.
This rather bizarre ruling has stemmed from a much more serious case in which a restaurant patron suffered serious medical complications after getting a bone stuck in his throat after tucking into some boneless wings eight years ago.
The claim from Michael Berkheimer, the restaurant patron, was rejected by the divided court, which voted 4-3 in the ruling.
Berkheimer was dining with his wife and friends at a wing joint in Hamilton, Ohio, in 2016, ordering a plate of boneless wings with parmesan garlic sauce when a piece of the chicken went down the wrong way, the lawsuit reportedly stated.
Three days after dining out, Berkheimer claimed he was feverish and unable to keep his food down, so he visited the emergency room. While being examined, a doctor discovered a long, thin bone that had torn his esophagus and was causing an infection, the suit said.
Berkheimer sued the restaurant, Wings on Brookwood, and also named the supplier and farm where the chicken came from, and claimed that the restaurant failed to warn him that ‘boneless wings’ could contain bones.
In the ruling, the Supreme Court said that “boneless wings” actually refer to the cooking style of the meat, and that the restaurant patron should have been on guard against bones as it is common knowledge that chickens do have bones.
The high court sided with lower courts that had previously dismissed the lawsuit.
The judges were in disagreement before reaching the decision, seemingly opening up a can of worms about whether labeling a dish as “boneless wings” is misleading.
Justice Joseph T Deters wrote for the majority that “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.”
“The food item’s label on the menu described a cooking style; it was not a guarantee.”
Meanwhile, the disagreeing justices called this reasoning “utter jabberwocky,” arguing that it should have been up to a jury to decide whether the restaurant was negligent in serving Berkheimer a dish that was advertised on the menu as being 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 bones to be in the chicken? Of course, they don’t,” wrote Justice Michael P Donnelly.
“When they read the word ‘boneless,’ they think that it means ‘without bones,’ as do all sensible people.”
Additional reporting from The Associated Press.
