- A man in Ohio said he had to visit the ER after a bone from a boneless wing got lodged in his throat, a lawsuit wrote.
- The man sued the restaurant, its supplier, and a chicken farm, but lost his case.
- He appealed the ruling twice. This week, Ohio's Supreme Court agreed with the case's dismissal.
A restaurant in Ohio has been found "not negligent" for injuries sustained by a man who found a bone in wings that had been advertised as "boneless," Ohio's Supreme Court has ruled.
While eating at Wings on Brookwood, a restaurant in Hamilton, Ohio, in April 2016, Michael Berkheimer "suddenly left a foreign object in his throat" but was unable to dislodge it, the lawsuit said.
After three days — during which he said he struggled to eat — he reported to the emergency room with a high fever, and physicians found a chicken bone lodged in his throat, per the lawsuit.
A doctor removed the bone, thought to be about an inch and a half long, with forceps, per court documents. Berkheimer said that the bone tore his esophagus, causing a bacterial infection and ongoing medical issues.
Berkheimer filed a lawsuit the next year against Wings on Brookwood as well as its food supplier and a chicken farm. After the Butler County Court of Common Pleas sided with the defendants, he took the case to the Twelfth District Court of Appeals, which similarly said that the defendants weren't negligent.
Both courts said that because bones are naturally found in chicken breasts, rather than being a foreign object added to them, a consumer could have reasonably expected to find them in their food and guarded against this. As a result, the restaurant didn't breach its duty of care, the courts said.
Boneless wings keep confusing diners
Boneless wings aren't actually wings at all, and it confuses some diners.
They're typically made from strips or chunks of chicken breast meat, which are breaded and fried. The name is used to differentiate them from traditional bone-in wings.
The confusion has led to at least one lawsuit. In 2023, a man sued Buffalo Wild Wings, claiming that the name of its boneless wings was misleading. Before it added boneless wings to its menu this year, Popeyes had considered alternative names, like "bites."
And International Wing Factory in New York City simply refers to the product as "boneless chicken."
'Boneless wing is merely a description of the cooking style'
Berkheimer said that he had cut the boneless wing into three pieces to eat, per court documents.
"A bone of that size would have encompassed nearly the entire third bite of the boneless wing," the Court of Appeals wrote. "We conclude a reasonable person could have anticipated and guarded against a similarly large-sized bone concealed in a bite size piece of chicken," it added.
Berkheimer also appealed to Ohio's Supreme Court, which supported the Court of Appeals' ruling in an opinion on Thursday.
In response to Berkheimer's argument that the product was described as a "boneless wing," the Supreme Court wrote that it's "common sense that that label was merely a description of the cooking style" and that it wasn't a guarantee the chicken wouldn't contain any bones.
In statements to BI, Berkheimer's lawyers expressed their disappointment with the ruling, and it said it rendered the word "boneless" as "completely meaningless."
Business Insider contacted Wings on Brookwood, the food supplier, and the chicken farm for comment but didn't immediately hear back.