Buffalo Wild Wings sets out to prove that boneless wings aren't just nuggets

Buffalo Wild Wings is defending its ‘boneless wings’ in court against misleading marketing claims.
The plaintiff claims that the wings are made from chicken breast meat and not chicken wing meat.
Buffalo Wild Wings claims it is “common sense” that they are not actually wings, citing another case.

Buffalo Wild Wings has been fighting in court for more than a year to prove that its “boneless wings” aren’t just chicken nuggets. Now the company’s lawyers say a case in the Ohio Supreme Court has already resolved the issue.

Aimen Halim filed a class action lawsuit against Buffalo Wild Wings in March 2023, claiming in court documents that the chain’s “boneless wings” are actually made from chicken breast, which he said amounts to “deceptive marketing.” In court filings, attorneys for Halim claim the boneless wings are “more similar in composition to a chicken nugget than a chicken wing.”

Buffalo Wild Wings first filed a motion to dismiss the case in June 2023, which was supplemented on July 29. In that filing, the chain’s attorneys argued that the issues in the case had already been resolved by the Ohio Supreme Court in an earlier case. .

Attorneys for Buffalo Wild Wings cited Berkheimer v. REKM LLC, an Ohio lawsuit in which a man sued a restaurant after he “swallowed a bone while eating a ‘boneless wing’ made from pre-buttered, boneless, skinless chicken breasts,” according to the attorney for Buffalo Wild Wings. court documents.

In that case, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in favor of the defendant, ruling that restaurants cannot be held responsible for food that consumers could reasonably expect to be included in their meals.

According to court documents, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected Berkheimer’s argument that no consumer could reasonably expect a bone to be in a boneless wing as “fanciful and implausible.”

“With respect to calling the food product a ‘boneless wing,’ it is common sense that the label was merely a description of the cooking style,” the Ohio Supreme Court said in its majority opinion. “A diner who reads ‘boneless wings’ on a menu would no more believe that the restaurant justified the absence of bones in the items than would believe that the items were made from chicken wings, any more than someone who eats ‘chicken fingers’ would believe that would know he hadn’t gotten any fingers.”

Attorneys for Buffalo Wild Wings said in their latest filing that even the dissenting opinions in the Ohio case agreed with the “common sense” conclusion that “boneless wings aren’t actually wings.”

“Berkheimer directly supports the dismissal of Plaintiff’s allegations,” the filing said.

Halim has also filed class action lawsuits against other companies over their products, such as the makers of Tom’s Mouthwash, KIND granola and Hefty recycling bags.

Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, previously told Business Insider that class action cases like Halim’s “rarely, if ever, go to jury trial” because the judge must first decide whether the case is suitable for class certification. received. meaning it can represent a group of claimants.

Bill Marler, an attorney specializing in food safety cases, also previously told BI that these types of lawsuits are often legally unproductive and walk a “fine line between consumer advocacy and just being a nuisance.”

“It raises the question of what is the real purpose here? Is it that they are a consumer advocate and then extract fees and costs from the company to discourage them from doing it again? Or is it just a tool to take fees and costs out of the business and costs out of a business?” Marler told BI.

But Halim’s lawyers are not giving up the fight. On August 5, they responded to the company’s latest request.

Halim argued that the Ohio case explored “a very different legal issue” because the court ruled that consumers could expect bones in a boneless wing because they are “natural to the chicken.”

Halim’s case, his lawyers argued, focuses on whether consumers should expect “boneless wings” to contain wing meat or meat from other parts of the chicken.

“It seems based on Berkheimer that if it is reasonable to expect a bone in a boneless wing, then it would be equally reasonable for the bone to be in the boneless wing because it was originally a wing,” said the submission.

Buffalo Wild Wings did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit filings.

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