It’s a great debate amongst popular bar food.
Regular or boneless wings?
One of the country’s top courts just made a major ruling that could impact wing-eaters across the country.
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled this week that consumers should not expect boneless wings to be completely free of bones.
The bizarre ruling is the result of a legal suit a guest of a restaurant filed when he suffered serious medical complications because a bone from a boneless wing got stuck in his throat.
According to the Associated Press (AP), Michael Berkheimer was dining with his wife and friends at a wing joint in Hamilton, Ohio, when he ordered his usual: boneless wings with Parmesan garlic sauce.
As Berkheimer was eating, he felt a bite-size piece of meat go down the wrong way.
Three days later, Berkheimer came down with a strong fever and was unable to keep food down. He 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, claiming the restaurant failed to warn him that “boneless wings” could contain bones, despite the understanding the items are nuggets of chicken meat free of bones, or “boneless.”
According to the AP report, Berkheimer’s lawsuit named the wing supplier as well as the farm that produced the chicken, accusing them of being negligent.
In the high court’s decision this week, it said that “boneless wings” refers to a cooking style, and Berkheimer should have been on guard against bones, since it is common knowledge that chickens have bones.
Lower courts had dismissed Berkheimer’s suit, and the latest decision from the high court sides with the previous decisions.
“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 for the majority.
If you’re a boneless wings fan, eater beware!