Ohio court rules boneless chicken wings can contain bones

Boneless chicken wings ruling overview: 

• Who: The Ohio Supreme Court ruled consumers can’t expect that boneless wings are guaranteed to be boneless.
• Why: The court ruled the term “boneless wings” simply refers to a cooking style and that consumers should reasonably expect a meat item to potentially contain bone fragments.
• Where: The chicken wing ruling was made in the Ohio Supreme Court. 

Consumers can’t expect boneless wings they order to not actually contain any bones, a divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled last month. 

The court’s decision came in the wake of a consumer complaint against a local Ohio restaurant accused of serving boneless wings containing bones. 

The consumer, Michael Berkheimer, claimed he suffered a serious medical complication after a bone got stuck in his throat while eating an order of boneless wings from the restaurant Wings on Brookwood. 

Berkheimer claimed the restaurant failed to warn him that the boneless wings he ordered could contain bones. He also argued the supplier of the product and the farm where the chicken were produced were negligent. 

Trial court, 12th Circuit both rule against consumer in boneless chicken wings case

The Ohio Supreme Court noted a trial court and the 12th Circuit both determined the defendants had not been negligent in either serving or supplying the purportedly boneless chicken wings. 

The majority, meanwhile, determined in a 4-3 ruling that the term “boneless wings” refers to a style of cooking rather, and that Berkheimer should have been on the lookout for bones, since it is “common sense” that bone fragments can be in meat dishes. 

“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 majority opinion says.

The dissenters, meanwhile, called the majority decision “jabberwocky” and said the issue should have been heard by a jury. 

In other chicken wing-related news, a consumer filed a class action lawsuit against Buffalo Wild Wings and Inspire Brands last year over claims the restaurant falsely advertised its boneless wing products contained chicken wing meat. 

Have you eaten a ‘boneless wing’ that contained a bone? Let us know in the comments.

The Boneless chicken wings ruling is In: re Berkheimer v. REKM, L.L.C., Slip Opinion No. 2024-Ohio-2787. 

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