Ohio Lawmaker Wants 'Boneless' Chicken Wings to Truly Have No Bones

What does the word “boneless” convey? If Shakespeare were alive, he would likely say that it refers to the absence of bones, no matter how poetically one might try to describe it. However, in Ohio, the word “boneless” doesn’t actually mean that there are no bones involved, at least when it comes to chicken wings.

A new bill wants to change that.

The “boneless” chicken wings. Although it might seem surprising, the word “boneless” is a crucial part of this story. It began in 2016 after a man named Michael Berkheimer visited a local restaurant and ordered his standard fare: parmesan garlic boneless chicken wings. He ate his wings after cutting them into a few pieces but soon felt that something wasn’t right.

Berkheimer said it felt like a piece of meat had gone down the wrong pipe. A few days later, he came down with a fever and went to the emergency room. Doctors found that a long, thin chicken bone had torn through his esophagus and caused an infection. Berkheimer ended up having several surgeries because of the incident and spent multiple weeks in the hospital. That wasn’t the end of it, though. He also had lasting heart and lung damage and a partially paralyzed esophagus.

Berkheimer proceeded to sue the restaurant over what he had endured. He claimed that it had failed to inform him that the “boneless wings” could in fact contain bones. In his lawsuit, Berkheimer also accused the restaurant’s suppliers of negligence.

The outcome. After being dismissed by lower courts, Berkheimer’s lawsuit ended up before the Ohio Supreme Court in 2024. However, the outcome was the same. In a 4-3 decision, the majority of the justices determined that since chickens have bones, it was common sense to assume that the “boneless” chicken wings could have bones.

"The food item's label on the menu described a cooking style; it was not a guarantee," Justice Joseph Deters wrote in the opinion.

The dissenting justices didn’t agree with Deters’ assertion. Justice Michael Donnelly pointed out that when people read the word "boneless," they expect something not to have bones.

"The question must be asked: 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," Donnelly wrote in a dissent. "When they read the word ‘boneless,’ they think that it means ‘without bones,’ as do all sensible people."

The dissenting justices added that the case should have been determined by a jury, not the Ohio Supreme Court.

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The bill. Introduced by Democratic state Sen. Bill DeMora, SB 38 aims to establish standards for food injury lawsuits across the state. DeMora calls it the “boneless wing bill” and said he filed it in response to the Berkheimer case. Specifically, the bill focuses on liability and seeks to establish that it be determined by “whether the injured person, in consuming such food, had a reasonable expectation that the food did not contain a substance that is injurious to human health.”

“A [reasonable expectation] test means what would the average person think about a certain situation,” DeMora told local outlet NBC4i. “I don’t know what normal person in the United States doesn’t think boneless means without bones.”

The bill also states that the jury will decide whether the person who suffered the injury had a reasonable expectation that the food did not contain the substance.

A new precedent. As noted by NBC4i, if DeMora’s bill becomes law, it won’t undo the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling in the Berkheimer case, but it will set a new precedent. The bill faces a steep uphill battle. It currently only has one Democratic co-sponsor.

Images | Scott Eckersley | Atharva Tulsi

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