They may appear to be grown-up chicken nuggets, but boneless wings are wings, a judge ruled.
A federal judge threw out the lawsuit involving Buffalo Wild Wings and the company’s practice of calling chicken bites “boneless wings.”
The person who brought the lawsuit said he was misled into thinking that boneless wings were really wings with the bones removed, Fox Business reported.
Aimen Halim said that the boneless wing name is fraudulent because they are essentially chicken breast meat, not deboned wings.
He claimed that if he had known that they were not deboned wings, he would have paid less or not ordered them.
Buffalo Wild Wings said context makes it clear they are nuggets not made of wing meat and that the “wing” portion of the name is the style of cooking instead, The New York Times reported.
Halim had tried to bring a nationwide class action lawsuit over the chicken debate.
The court ruled that “boneless wing” is a “fanciful name” and that no reasonable customer would have thought they were getting a deboned wing “reconstituted into somesor of Franken-wing.” He likened it to chicken fingers not being made of fingers, Fox Business explained.
The New York Times said Judge John Tharp Jr.’s decision was “an opinion heavy on chicken puns.”
He wrote, “Despite his best efforts, Halim did not ‘drum’ up enough factual allegations to state a claim.”
Tharp also said the complaint had “no meat on its bones.”
He noted that the restaurant also sells cauliflower wings as a chicken alternative.
“If Halim is right, reasonable consumers should think that cauliflower wings are made (at least in part) from wing meat,” Tharp said. “They don’t, though.”
Halim has until March 20 to file an amended complaint.
Read the decision here or below.
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