The Ohio Supreme Court says consumers can't expect boneless chicken wings to actually be free of bones.

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.

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In a 4-3 ruling, the Supreme Court said Thursday that “boneless wings” refers to a cooking style, and that Berkheimer should’ve been on guard against bones since it’s common knowledge that chickens have bones. The high court sided with lower courts that had dismissed Berkheimer’s suit.

  • @mkwt
    14•1 month ago

    Did the restaurant just screw up the order, or was this some process deficiency with the deboner?

    • @expatriado
      12•1 month ago

      yes, customer got boned at a restaurant and in court

    • @EmpathicVagrant
      10•1 month ago

      A child probably got killed or maimed cleaning the deboning machines in the slaughterhouse, and we can’t have that affecting profits!

    • @[email protected]
      7•1 month ago

      Boneless chicken isn’t just deboned, it’s shredded and mashed. Since it’s basically manufacturing chicken, there is a guaranteed nonzero margin of error. It’s the correct ruling, there’s no way any company could guarantee the complete absence of bones that were mixed in with the ingredients. I’m more surprised this doesn’t happen more often.

      • @[email protected]
        1•1 month ago

        there’s no way any company could guarantee the complete absence of bones that were mixed in with the ingredients.

        And this is acceptable to you? Perhaps corporations shouldn’t be permitted to sell a product if they cannot guarantee that it won’t kill an otherwise healthy, allergy-free person.

        Radical thought, I know…

        This is a perfectly avoidable problem. But profits are more important than human lives, so nope. They’ll continue throwing every little scrap onto a blender to make sure they’re squeezing every cent out of their miserable factory farmed chicken

        • @[email protected]
          1•1 month ago

          I’m not exaggerating when I saw literally every product has an acceptable percentage of defecting products that can make it to shelves before it’s not okay. There isn’t a product in the world that has a 0% risk. It’s just something you need to accept and negotiate on how many defective products are acceptable.

          • @[email protected]
            1•1 month ago

            You’re so capital-brained that you can’t even grasp the concept of regulations to mitigate risk until it’s essentially zero. This isn’t some impossible task, you just think corporations’ profit margins are more important than human lives. That’s truly what it comes down to.

            There isn’t a product in the world that has a 0% risk.

            That’s fucking absurd.

            • @[email protected]
              1•1 month ago

              We were talking about bones in boneless chicken wings. When’s the last time you heard of that happening in any context? Do you anticipate hearing another story about it ever again in your life?

              That’s fucking absurd

              I noticed that you didn’t happen to name any…

              • @[email protected]
                1•1 month ago

                It’s literally the same thing as the McDonald’s hot coffee thing.

                “Everyone knows coffee is hot so it’s her fault” right?

                Well no, turns out the case was a lot more nuanced than that, and she 100% deserved to win.

                You think you made a point because no matter what product I name, you can come up with some creatively stupid way that a human could theoretically hurt themselves with it. All that says is that you’re a creative person. Congrats.

                • @[email protected]
                  1•1 month ago

                  The hot coffee incident was a known issue with their machines. Management had been made aware and was intentionally negligent. An incident was inevitable.

                  No one had any way of suspecting there was a bone in the chicken wing, the customer didn’t even notice. Who are you trying to assign blame to?

    • @[email protected]English
      6•1 month ago

      I don’t know what the boneless tender machine looks like, but no process is 100% effective, so it’s entirely possible for a bit of bone to make it through. Usually, that’s acceptable, because you find it while chewing and remove it. In this case, it was a dangerously-shaped piece of bone, and it ended up in his respiratory system and caused significant illness.

      Honestly, I’m not sure that he has a case, since it really is acceptable for some bone to be present. That it ended up poorly for him isn’t really the company’s fault.

      In an ideal system, his medical costs would be covered by universal healthcare, and he wouldn’t have to worry about paying bills or losing his job while out sick through no fault of his own. He shouldn’t need to sue for those costs. (And if he’s just looking for a payday lawsuit, then fuck that guy and his lawyer.)

      • @halcyoncmdrEnglish
        6•1 month ago

        The bone was nearly 1.5 inches long. It wasn’t just a bit of bone. It was basically the size of some bone-in wings.