Remember a few weeks ago, when I wrote about an Indiana judge who ruled that tacos were sandwiches? I was hoping that would be the worst judicial buffoonery of 2024, but I was wrong.
Because those motherbuckeyes in Ohio have just ruled that boneless chicken wings are not actually boneless.
According to an Associated Press story, THEE Ohio Supreme Court ruled 4–3 that consumers cannot, should not, and must not expect boneless chicken wings to be free of bones, despite the name.
Before you come at me with your "boneless wings are just chicken nuggets" pedantry, save it. For one thing, you're wrong.
For another, no one cares.
Thirdly, you're wrong.
I've spent enough lunches eating BW3's boneless wings to tell you that their boneless wings are light years ahead of those lifeless little nugget plugs from the fast food places.
Ohio's latest kerfuffle started, as it always does, with a lawsuit.
Michael Berkheimer was at dinner with his wife and some friends at Wings On Brookwood in Hamilton, north of Cincinnati. He ordered boneless wings with parmesan garlic sauce when one of his bites went down the wrong way.
A few days later, Berkheimer went to the emergency room because he had a fever and couldn't keep food down. A doctor discovered that Berkheimer a two-inch bone sliver had caused a tear in his esophagus, leading to an infection, requiring two surgeries to fix.
Berkheimer sued the restaurant, which is understandable. But he said the restaurant failed to warn him that their "boneless wings" could contain bones, which is dumb.
Not surprisingly, he lost. The trial judge said that Berkheimer should have assumed that bones in the chicken were possible and that he should have been on his guard against them.
Berkheimer appealed to Ohio's Court of Appeals, which said the same thing, so he appealed it again.
And THEE Ohio Supreme Court ruled against him, too.
Look, I'm sorry Berkheimer got hurt. I'm sorry that a nice time with friends turned into a medical emergency. That sucks. But if anyone was truly responsible for the bone sliver, it was the company that actually produced the wings in the first place.
The restaurant can't know there might be bones in their wings unless they cut each one open and search it. So I don't think they should be held liable unless they made the wings from scratch.
And the chicken farmer isn't responsible, because there's no such thing as boneless chickens. He grew the chickens the same way farmers have done for centuries.
So THEE Ohio Supreme Court made the right decision, but they arrived at it the wrong way because it shows that they don't actually understand how chicken works.
In the majority ruling, Judge Joseph T. Deters — who thinks we think monkey bread is made from real monkeys — wrote that "A diner reading 'boneless wings' on a menu would no more believe that the restaurant was warranting the absence of bones in the items than believe that the items were made from chicken wings."
That's exactly what we think because boneless wings have been served without bones since their creation. (I'll talk about the wings thing in a minute.)
Judge Deters — who thinks we think English muffins speak with a British accent — must not understand bar food or what the word "boneless" actually means. Boneless wings are just chunks of meat cut from a chicken breast, just like chicken nuggets, chicken fingers, and chicken tenders.
But Judge Deters — who thinks we think gunpowder tea is covered by the 2nd Amendment* — wrote that "boneless wings" only refers to a cooking style. He said that Berkheimer should have been aware that there could be bones in his wings.
(* He also thinks we think "blowing a raspberry" is something sexual.)
I disagree."Boneless" is a promise, not a suggestion. It tells you exactly what is going to be delivered to you.
On the other hand, "wings" is a metaphor. Boneless wings aren't made from wings any more than french fries are from France or ants on a log are made from ants or logs, although Deters may think we believe that.
We're not dumb. Or, most of us aren't. We're capable of holding two contradictory thoughts. We can understand that "boneless" is a literal definition, but "wings" is a metaphor. We don't expect tiny bones to be hidden in the wings like little prizes any more than the wings were for flight.
The three dissenting justices used common sense and logic in their dissenting opinion. They called Deters' decision "utter jabberwocky," which must be a legal term for total BS.
The justices, who have eaten boneless wings before, wrote, "Does anyone really believe that the parents in this country who feed their young children boneless wings or chicken tenders or chicken nuggets or chicken fingers expect bones to be in the chicken? Of course, they don’t. . . (t)hey think that it means 'without bones,' as do all sensible people."
The bottom line is that no matter where you come down on whether boneless wings should have bones in it, whether or not grasshopper pie has grasshoppers, or that ladyfingers are made from real fingers, there's one important lesson all sensible people should take from this ruling:
Be sure to chew your food.
Photo credit: Chagoboy (Pixabay, Creative Commons 0)
My new humor novel, Mackinac Island Nation, is finished and available from 4 Horsemen Publications. You can get the ebook and print versions here.
