Boneless Chicken Wings Can Have Bones After All, Ohio Supreme Court Rules - WSJ
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Boneless Chicken Wings Can Have Bones After All, Ohio Supreme Court Rules
Man who sued a restaurant after eating a bone should have expected it could have been in his boneless wings, court says
July 26, 2024 4:30 pm ET
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A boneless chicken wing Photo: Matt Rourke/Associated Press
A boneless chicken wing with bones is still a boneless chicken, according to an Ohio court.
A man who ate boneless wings in 2016 sued an Ohio restaurant after ingesting a two-inch bone that tore his esophagus. His case made it up to the state supreme court, where the judges in a 4-3 decision this week said he should have expected the possibility the boneless chicken he was eating could have had bones.
The man, Michael Berkheimer, said he felt something go down the wrong pipe when he took a bite of a dish he often ordered: boneless wings tossed in Parmesan and garlic sauce, according to court records. He tried and failed to throw up the bone in the bathroom.
Berkheimer, now 65, later came down with a fever and went to an emergency room the next day. A doctor removed a roughly two-inch chicken bone that had lodged in his esophagus and torn it, according to court records. He got an infection and sustained damage to his heart and lungs. He had to get two surgeries.
He filed a lawsuit in 2017 against the restaurant, which is owned by a company known as REKM; food supplier Gordon Food Service; and a chicken farm called Wayne Farms. Lawyers for the three entities didn’t immediately return requests for comment.
Robb Stokar, Berkheimer’s lawyer, said the court in its decision Thursday had rendered the word "boneless" completely meaningless.
"Mr. Berkheimer suffered catastrophic injuries from a bone contained in a menu item unambiguously advertised as ‘boneless’ at every level of commerce," Stokar said, adding that his client can no longer play hockey because of his injuries.
The Ohio Supreme Court judges debated in a December hearing if Berkheimer’s boneless logic should also apply to fish fillets. Stokar told the judges that people shouldn’t have to expect bones in foods that might have it. The judges disagreed.
"Most people know that chickens—there aren’t such things as chickens without bones out there," said Patrick DeWine, one of the judges and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s son.
"Boneless means boneless," Stokar said.
Wings on Brookwood, in Hamilton, Ohio, sells boneless chicken wings. Photo: Google
Four of the judges, in their decision, said suppliers aren’t negligent if they distribute food with naturally occurring foreign objects like bones. Consumers should be aware it is possible for certain foods to contain such items, the judges wrote. Berkheimer, therefore, should have expected his boneless chicken wing could have a bone.
Berkheimer swallowed the bone at a meal with his wife and friends at Wings on Brookwood, a restaurant in the Cincinnati suburb of Hamilton, where he was a regular. The restaurant, which has a 3.4 out of 5 rating on Yelp, still has boneless wings on the menu. The restaurant’s website said the place is family owned and all of its boneless offerings are hand cut.
Berkheimer isn’t the first chicken-wing eater to have waded into an unusual courtroom battle. A Chicago man sued Buffalo Wild Wings last year because he said the chain was falsely advertising chicken breast slices as boneless wings.
Write to Alyssa Lukpat at alyssa.lukpat@wsj.com