If you order “boneless chicken wings” . . . you aren’t actually getting “wings” . . . and in Ohio, they don’t even have to be boneless.
A few years ago, a man in Ohio ordered boneless wings at a restaurant. One of them DID have a bone, and he ended up choking on it . . . got an infection . . . and had to have two surgeries.
He sued the restaurant owners, the chicken suppliers, and the processors, and the case made it all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court.
In a divided 4-to-3 decision, the conservative-leaning court ruled that boneless chicken CAN have bones. The majority said, quote, “[Boneless chicken wings] is a cooking style, it’s not a guarantee . . . just as a person eating ‘chicken fingers’ would know that he had not been served fingers.”
Basically, they argued that bones are natural to meat, so consumers should expect them . . . be prepared if they encounter them . . . and no one is liable if boneless wings have bones.
The minority argued that the ruling could have more serious consequences . . . like, “Could someone allergic to nuts or gluten sue if they were served something dangerous to them? People can die under some of those circumstances . . . but lactose and gluten and nuts are natural to foods.”
The majority pushed back on that . . . basically saying, “that’s different” . . . because it’s “not something a consumer would customarily expect and be able to guard against.”
So just a heads-up: Be careful chowing down on boneless wings in Ohio.
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