Buyer Beware: Divided Ohio Supreme Court Says Boneless Wings Can, In Fact, Contain Bones

Okay, so the headline here is a little misleading, but it’s interesting in terms of case law and a warning that labels — including on food — aren’t always 100% accurate.

Here’s more from the AP:

Consumers cannot expect boneless chicken wings to actually be free of bones, a divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled Thursday, rejecting claims by a restaurant patron who suffered serious medical complications from getting a bone stuck in his throat.

Michael Berkheimer was dining with his wife and friends at a wing joint in Hamilton, Ohio, and had ordered the usual — boneless wings with parmesan garlic sauce — when he felt a bite-size piece of meat go down 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.

The court basically said that bones can still be present in boneless meat, because ‘boneless’ is a ‘cooking style’ (we disagree, but okay).

A surprise, like a Kinder Egg.

Right?

‘Boneless wings’ are just a fancy way of saying ‘chicken nugget’ in this writer’s opinion, anyway.

An excellent question.

Boneless is not a cooking style (in this writer’s opinion, but she’s not a lawyer). It’s a form — like seedless watermelon. They’re specifying that this product doesn’t contain bones.

And it doesn’t seem like the Ohio supreme court made a distinction that a shard of bone (likely from a manufacturing error) is different from actual bones, especially referring to ‘boneless’ as a form of cooking.

Make it make sense.

Peace is restored across the land.

Not even once.

It is an erosion.

‘Boneless’ means something — free from bones. We expect chicken nuggets to contain chicken, and beef to contain beef.

At a minimum, it seemed like there was an error in the quality control at some point and a man suffered a pretty serious injury because of it.

It does.